e; then, untying the key from the handle, they opened
the box. As before, a bright light leapt out directly the lid was
raised, but it did not spring from the lustre of jewels, but from hot
flames, which darted along the walls and burnt up the cottage and all
that was in it and the mother and daughter as well.

As they had done when the stepdaughter came home, the neighbours all
hurried to see what was the matter; but they were too late. Only the
hen-house was left standing; and, in spite of her riches, there the
stepdaughter lived happily to the end of her days.

The Goldsmith's Fortune

[From Thorpe's Yule-Tide Stories.]

Once upon a time there was a goldsmith who lived in a certain village
where the people were as bad and greedy, and covetous, as they could
possibly be; however, in spite of his surroundings, he was fat and
prosperous. He had only one friend whom he liked, and that was a
cowherd, who looked after cattle for one of the farmers in the village.
Every evening the goldsmith would walk across to the cowherd's house and
say: 'Come, let's go out for a walk!'

Now the cowherd didn't like walking in the evening, because, he said, he
had been out grazing the cattle all day, and was glad to sit down when
night came; but the goldsmith always worried him so that the poor man
had to go against his will. This at last so annoyed him that he tried to
think how he could pick a quarrel with the goldsmith, so that he should
not beg him to walk with him any more. He asked another cowherd for
advice, and he said the best thing he could do was to go across and kill
the goldsmith's wife, for then the goldsmith would be sure to regard him
as an enemy; so, being a foolish person, and there being no laws in that
country by which a man would be certainly punished for such a crime, the
cowherd one evening took a big stick and went across to the goldsmith's
house when only Mrs. Goldsmith was at home, and banged her on the head
so hard that she died then and there.

When the goldsmith came back and found his wife dead he said nothing,
but just took her outside into the dark lane and propped her up against
the wall of his house, and then went into the courtyard and waited.
Presently a rich stranger came along the lane, and seeing someone there,
as he supposed, he said:

'Good-evening, friend! a fine night to-night!' But the goldsmith's wife
said nothing. The man then repeated his words louder; but still there
was no r