eaties, that I would intercede to save
them from their torment, that I was moved with the deepest compassion,
and began to ask my conductor if there were no relief for them. But he
hurried me away, assuring me that they only wanted to sell me some of
their infernal editions, and the idea of owning any such property was
so dreadful that it woke me up directly.

THE DEVIL'S MOTHER-IN-LAW[16]

BY FERNAN CABALLERO

[16] From _Spanish Fairy Tales_. By Fernan Caballero.
Translated by J. H. Ingram. (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott
Co., 1881. By permission of the Publishers.)

In a town, named Villagananes, there was once an old widow uglier than
the sergeant of Utrera, who was considered as ugly as ugly could be;
drier than hay; older than foot-walking, and more yellow than the
jaundice. Moreover, she had so crossgrained a disposition that Job
himself could not have tolerated her. She had been nicknamed "Mother
Holofernes," and she had only to put her head out of doors to put all
the lads to flight. Mother Holofernes was as clean as a new pin, and
as industrious as an ant, and in these respects suffered no little
vexation on account of her daughter Panfila, who was, on the contrary,
so lazy, and such an admirer of the Quietists, that an earthquake
would not move her. So it came to pass that Mother Holofernes began
quarrelling with her daughter almost from the day that the girl was
born.

"You are," she said, "as flaccid as Dutch tobacco, and it would take a
couple of oxen to draw you out of your room. You fly work as you would
the pest, and nothing pleases you but the window, you shameless girl.
You are more amorous than Cupid himself, but, if I have any power, you
shall live as close as a nun."

On hearing all this, Panfila got up, yawned, stretched herself, and
turning her back on her mother, went to the street door. Mother
Holofernes, without paying attention to this, began to sweep with most
tremendous energy, accompanying the noise of the broom with a
monologue of this tenor:--

"In my time girls had to work like men."

The broom gave the accompaniment of _shis_, _shis_, _shis_.

"And lived as secluded as nuns."

And the broom went _shis_, _shis_, _shis_.

"Now they are a pack of fools."--_Shis_, _shis_.

"Of idlers."--_Shis_, _shis_.

"And think of nothing but husbands.--_Shis_, _shis_.

"And are a lot of good-for-nothings."

The broom following with its chorus.

By this time she