ust go to the river and bathe this afternoon," says the old
witch. "I will be there and put a spell on the water. Secretly you
must go, for if any one knows whither you have gone my spell will not
work."

So Alenoushka wrapped a shawl about her head, and slipped out of the
house and went to the river. Only the little lamb, Vanoushka, knew
where she had gone. He followed her, leaping about, and tossing his
little white tail. The old witch was waiting for her. She sprang out
of the bushes by the riverside, and seized Alenoushka, and tore off
her pretty white dress, and fastened a heavy stone about her neck, and
threw her from the bank into a deep place, so that she sank to the
bottom of the river. Then the old witch, the wicked hag, put on
Alenoushka's pretty white dress, and cast a spell, and made herself so
like Alenoushka to look at that nobody could tell the difference. Only
the little lamb had seen everything that had happened.

The fine gentleman came riding home in the evening, and he rejoiced
when he saw his dear Alenoushka well again, with plump pink cheeks,
and a smile on her rosy lips.

But the little lamb knew everything. He was sad and melancholy, and
would not eat, and went every morning and every evening to the river,
and there wandered about the banks, and cried, "Baa, baa," and was
answered by the sighing of the wind in the long reeds.

The witch saw that the lamb went off by himself every morning and
every evening. She watched where he went, and when she knew she began
to hate the lamb; and she gave orders for the sticks to be cut, and
the iron cauldron to be heated, and the steel knives made sharp. She
sent a servant to catch the lamb; and she said to the fine gentleman,
who thought all the time that she was Alenoushka, "It is time for the
lamb to be killed, and made into a tasty stew."

The fine gentleman was astonished.

"What," says he, "you want to have the lamb killed? Why, you called it
your brother when first I found you by the hayrick in the plain. You
were always giving it caresses and sweet words. You loved it so much
that I was sick of the sight of it, and now you give orders for its
throat to be cut. Truly," says he, "the mind of woman is like the wind
in summer."

The lamb ran away when he saw that the servant had come to catch him.
He heard the sharpening of the knives, and had seen the cutting of the
wood, and the great cauldron taken from its place. He was frightened,
and he ran