ltan's
chief baker, and the other as head cook.

The two elder sisters felt strongly the disproportion of their
marriages to that of their younger sister. This consideration made
them far from being content, though they were arrived at the utmost
height of their late wishes, and much beyond their hopes. They gave
themselves up to an excess of jealousy, and frequently met together to
consult how they might revenge themselves on the queen. They proposed
a great many ways, which they could not accomplish, but dissimulated
all the time to flatter the queen with every demonstration of
affection and respect.

Some months after her marriage, the queen gave birth to a young
prince, as bright as the day; but her sisters, to whom the child was
given at his birth, wrapped him up in a basket and floated it away on
a canal that ran near the palace, and declared that the queen had
given birth to a little dog. This made the emperor very angry.

In the meantime, the basket in which the little prince was exposed was
carried by the stream toward the garden of the palace. By chance the
intendant of the emperor's gardens, one of the principal and most
considerable officers of the kingdom, was walking by the side of this
canal, and perceiving a basket floating called to a gardener, who was
not far off, to bring it to shore that he might see what it contained.
The gardener, with a rake which he had in his hand, drew the basket
to the side of the canal, took it up, and gave it to him.

The intendant of the gardens was extremely surprised to see in the
basket a child, which, though he knew it could be but just born, had
very fine features. This officer had been married several years, but
though he had always been desirous of having children, Heaven had
never blessed him with any. He made the gardener follow him with the
child; and when he came to his own house, which was situated at the
entrance into the gardens of the palace, went into his wife's
apartment. "Wife," said he, "as we have no children of our own, God
hath sent us one. I recommend him to you; provide him a nurse, and
take as much care of him as if he were our own son; for, from this
moment, I acknowledge him as such." The intendant's wife received the
child with great joy.

The following year the queen consort gave birth to another prince, on
whom the unnatural sisters had no more compassion than on his brother;
but exposed him likewise in a basket, and set him adrift in the