ssure you that there is a large skein of wool, so fine that
nobody can see it, which will be woven into a coat for you.'

'Dear me!' he replied, 'what a clever wife I have got! If you had not
told me I should never have known that there was any wool on the wheel
at all. But now I really do seem to see something.'

The woman smiled and was silent, and after spinning busily for an hour
more, she got up from her stool, and began to weave as fast as she
could. At last she got up, and said to her husband: 'I am too tired to
finish it to-night, so I shall go to bed, and to-morrow I shall only
have the cutting and stitching to do.'

So the next morning she got up early, and after she had cleaned her
house, and fed her chickens, and put everything in its place again,
she bent over the kitchen table, and the sound of her big scissors
might be heard snip! snap! as far as the garden. Her husband could not
see anything to snip at; but then he was so stupid that was not
surprising!

After the cutting came the sewing. The woman patted and pinned and
fixed and joined, and then, turning to the man, she said:

'Now it is ready for you to try on.' And she made him take off his
coat, and stand up in front of her, and once more she patted and
pinned and fixed and joined, and was very careful in smoothing out
every wrinkle.

'It does not feel very warm,' observed the man at last, when he had
borne all this patiently for a long time.

'That is because it is so fine,' answered she; 'you do not want it to
be as thick as the rough clothes you wear every day.'

He _did_, but was ashamed to say so, and only answered: 'Well, I am
sure it must be beautiful since you say so, and I shall be smarter
than anyone in the whole village. "What a splendid coat!" they will
exclaim when they see me. But it is not everybody who has a wife as
clever as mine.'

Meanwhile the other wife was not idle. As soon as her husband entered
she looked at him with such a look of terror that the poor man was
quite frightened.

'Why do you stare at me so? Is there anything the matter?' asked he.

'Oh! go to bed at once,' she cried; 'you must be very ill indeed to
look like that!'

The man was rather surprised at first, as he felt particularly well
that evening; but the moment his wife spoke he became quite certain
that he had something dreadful the matter with him, and grew quite
pale.

'I dare say it would be the best place for me,' he answered,
trembling;