f the wind. When the cock crowed a second time, chairs went after
the table, followed by one dish after another. Everything leaped out of
the rock, and flew like the wind to the table. It was the same with
bottles of mead and apples and pears; everything seemed alive, so that
no one needed to fetch and carry anything. When everybody had eaten
enough, the old man knocked on the rock a second time with his silver
wand, and then the golden cock crowed, and the bottles, dishes, plates,
chairs, and table went back into the rock. But when the thirteenth dish
came, from which nothing was eaten, a great black cat ran after it, and
sat on the rock with the cock, till the old man carried them away. He
took the dish in his hand, the cat on his arm, and the golden cock on
his shoulder, and disappeared with them under the rock. Not only food
and drink, but everything else required for the household, and even
clothes, came out of the rock upon the crowing of the cock. Although but
little conversation was carried on at table, and even that in a foreign
language, the lady and the governess talked and sang a great deal in the
house and garden. In time Elsie also learned to understand almost
everything, but years elapsed before she could attempt to speak the
strange language herself. One day Elsie asked Kiisike why the thirteenth
dish came to table every day, although nobody ate anything from it; but
Kiisike could not tell her. However, she must have asked her mother,
who sent for Elsie a few days afterwards, and talked to her very
seriously. "Do not vex your soul with useless curiosity. You would like
to know why we never eat from the thirteenth dish? Mark well, dear
child; this is the dish of hidden blessing. We dare not touch it, or our
happy life would come to an end. It would be much better, too, for men
in this world if they did not grasp avariciously after all things
without returning anything in gratitude to the Heavenly Dispenser.
Avarice is the worst fault of mankind."[143]

The years flew by with arrow-like swiftness, and Elsie had now become a
blooming maiden, and had learned many things which would never have
become known to her during her whole life, if she had lived in the
village. But Kiisike remained the same little child as on the day when
she first met Elsie in the wood. The governess who lived in the house
with the lady instructed Kiisike and Elsie for some hours daily in
reading and writing, and in all kinds of fine w