as she lay there, and opened
her eyes, and passed a hand across them, as if she were waking from a
dream. And then she leapt up, crying and laughing, and clung about her
old father's neck. And there they stood, the two of them, laughing and
crying with joy. And the shepherd could not take his eyes from her,
and in his eyes, too, there were tears.

But the old father did not forget what he had promised the Tzar. He
set the little pretty one, who had been so good that her wicked
sisters had called her Stupid, to sit beside him on the cart. And he
brought something from the house in a coffer of wood, and kept it
under his coat. And they brought out the two sisters, the bad ones,
from their dark prison, and set them in the cart. And the Little
Stupid kissed them and cried over them, and wanted to loose their
hands, but the old merchant would not let her. And they all drove
together till they came to the palace of the Tzar. The shepherd boy
could not take his eyes from the little pretty one, and he ran all the
way behind the cart.

Well, they came to the palace, and waited on the steps; and the Tzar
came out to take the morning air, and he saw the old merchant, and the
two sisters with their hands tied, and the little pretty, one, as
lovely as a spring day. And the Tzar saw her, and could not take his
eyes from her. He did not see the shepherd boy, who hid away among the
crowd.

Says the great Tzar to his soldiers, pointing to the bad sisters,
"These two are to be put to death at sunset. When the sun goes down
their heads must come off, for they are not fit to see another day."

Then he turns to the little pretty one, and he says: "Little sweet
pigeon, where is your silver saucer, and where is your transparent
apple?"

The old merchant took the wooden box from under his coat, and opened
it with a key at his belt, and gave it to the little one, and she took
out the silver saucer and the transparent apple and gave them to the
Tzar.

"O lord Tzar," says she, "O little father, spin the apple in the
saucer, and you will see whatever you wish to see--your soldiers, your
high hills, your forests, your plains, your rivers, and Everything in
all Russia."

And the Tzar, the little father, spun the apple in the saucer till it
seemed a little whirlpool of white mist, and there he saw glittering
towns, and regiments of soldiers marching to war, and ships, and day
and night, and the clear stars above the trees. He looked at thes