ituated just outside the walls of a large
town, when she heard a voice calling to her. She turned and saw the
farmer's wife standing among her turkeys, and making signs to her to
come in.

'I want a girl to wash the dishes and feed the turkeys, and clean out
the pig-sty,' said the w omen, 'and, to judge by your dirty clothes, you
would not be too fine for the work.'

The girl accepted her offer with joy, and she was at once set to work in
a corner of the kitchen, where all the farm servants came and made fun
of her, and the ass's skin in which she was wrapped. But by-and-by they
got so used to the sight of it that it ceased to amuse them, and she
worked so hard and so well, that her mistress grew quite fond of her.
And she was so clever at keeping sheep and herding turkeys that you
would have thought she had done nothing else during her whole life!

One day she was sitting on the banks of a stream bewailing her wretched
lot, when she suddenly caught sight of herself in the water. Her hair
and part of her face was quite concealed by the ass's head, which was
drawn right over like a hood, and the filthy matted skin covered her
whole body. It was the first time she had seen herself as other people
saw her, and she was filled with shame at the spectacle. Then she threw
off her disguise and jumped into the water, plunging in again and again,
till she shone like ivory. When it was time to go back to the farm, she
was forced to put on the skin which disguised her, and now seemed more
dirty than ever; but, as she did so, she comforted herself with the
thought that to-morrow was a holiday, and that she would be able for
a few hours to forget that she was a farm girl, and be a princess once
more.

So, at break of day, she stamped on the ground, as the fairy had told
her, and instantly the dress like the sky lay across her tiny bed. Her
room was so small that there was no place for the train of her dress to
spread itself out, but she pinned it up carefully when she combed her
beautiful hair and piled it up on the top of her head, as she had always
worn it. When she had done, she was so pleased with herself that
she determined never to let a chance pass of putting on her splendid
clothes, even if she had to wear them in the fields, with no one to
admire her but the sheep and turkeys.

Now the farm was a royal farm, and, one holiday, when 'Donkey Skin' (as
they had nicknamed the princess) had locked the door of her room and
cl