“My dog has run away, and to-morrow we go before the king.” “Take this walnut, and crack it as you did the filbert. But you don’t deserve to be helped.” The next day the whole court was assembled again. The three women presented their dogs, which waddled about and behaved very dirtily and badly. “And what have you done?” said the prince to the girl. “Baa, baa,” said she, and cracked the walnut. Out jumped the most lovely tiny dog, with a golden collar and golden tinkling bells; he fawned upon the king and the prince, and quite won their hearts by his pretty manners. “One more trial,” said the prince. “All appear before me again in a week’s time, and I will marry the most beautiful.” All that week the three women washed themselves, and scented themselves, and rubbed themselves till they rubbed the skin off, and pomaded their hair till it shone like a looking-glass; but the girl sat among the sheep and wept. On the last day of the week the women began to put on their fine dresses and ornaments; and the unhappy girl sobbed more bitterly than ever, and called out, “Tassa, Tassa!” “What do you want, pretty maiden?” “To-morrow we go before the prince. What shall I do?” “Go with the others: and if he marries you don’t forget to say good-bye to me.” The next morning the three women with their grand dresses, and their pomade, and their scent, strutted boldly in before the court and the prince. “Go to the stable and bring the fourth,” commanded the prince: and one of the courtiers went down. Soon the door opened and the room was filled with a blaze of light, as the beautiful maiden, sheep no longer, entered and knelt humbly before the king. “That is my bride,” said the prince, as he raised her and kissed her: “You others may go.” So a grand wedding-feast was prepared, and this time the girl did not forget to say good-bye to the fairy who had been so kind to her. PADRE ULIVO “STRANGE, lingering echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps be even now caught by the diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry,” says George Eliot, speaking of the Midland Counties of England. Stranger yet, perhaps, is the survival of the old pagan spirit, the haunting echo of old pagan legend, which any visitor to the hills of Tuscany may verify. Let him join the peasants as they meet now in one house, now in another, to spend the long winter evenings round the fire; or let him stroll, in the early autumn, into some low, dark kitchen where neighbours sit among piles of chestnut twigs, busily stripping off the leaves and making them into bundles for winter use in the baking of chestnut cakes (_necci_). There, among _stornelli_ and _rispetti_, he may well chance upon some such shrewd, quaint tale as the following:— * * * * *