One night, when the Luck was asleep, the old man said to his wife: “There is Luck of the Bean-rows now, who has done so much to make us comfortable that we can spend the few years that are left us in peace and without labour. In making him heir to all we own we have given him only what is already his; and we should be thankless indeed if we did not try to secure him a more becoming position in life than that of a bean-merchant. A pity he is too modest for a professor’s chair in the universities, and he is just a trifle too short for a general.” “It’s a pity,” said the old woman, “he hasn’t studied enough to pick up the Latin names for five or six diseases. Eh, but they would be glad to make him a doctor right off!” “Then as to law-suits,” the old man went on, “I am afraid he has too much brains and good sense to clear up one of them.” “I have always had a fancy,” said the old woman, “that when he came of age he would marry Pea-Blossom.” “Pea-Blossom,” rejoined the old man, shaking his head, “is far too great a princess to marry a poor foundling, worth no more than a cabin and a bean field. Pea-Blossom, old dear, is a match for a squire or a justice of the peace, or for the king himself, if he came to be a widower. We are talking of a serious matter, do speak sense.” “Luck of the Bean-rows has more sense than both of us together,” said his wife after a moment’s thought. “Besides, it is his business, and it would not be proper to press it further without asking his opinion.” Whereupon the old couple turned over and went to sleep. Day was just breaking when the Luck leaped out of bed to begin work in the field as usual. Who but he was surprised to find his Sunday clothes laid out on the chest where he had left his others at bedtime? “It is a week-day, anyway,” he said to himself, “if the almanack hasn’t gone wrong. Mother must be keeping some holiday of her own to have set out my best things. Well, let it be as she wishes. I would not cross her in anything at her great age, and after all it is easy to make up for an hour or two by rising earlier or working later.” So after a prayer to God for the health of his parents and the progress of the beans, he dressed as handsomely as he could. He was about to go out of doors if only to cast an eye at the fences before the old couple awoke, when his mother appeared on the threshold with a bowl of good steaming porridge, which she placed with a wooden spoon on his little table. “Eat it up, eat it up!” she said; “do not be sparing of this porridge sweetened with honey and a pinch of green aniseed, just as you liked it when you were a little fellow; for the road is before you, laddie, and it is a long road you will travel to-day.” “That is good to hear,” said Luck of the Bean-rows, looking at her in surprise; “and where are you sending me?”