Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/99

blessing, making you the happiest maiden in the world. Take this wand, it will grant you whatever you may ask." The girl then left the enchanted region, and returned home, and as soon as the mistress's daughter saw her approach she commenced to cry out to her mother to come quickly and see the hearth-cat, who had come back at last. The mistress ran to greet her, and asked her where and what she had been doing all that time. The girl related the contrary of what she had seen, as the fairies had instructed her to do—that she had found a tidy house, and that she had disarranged everything in it, to make it look untidy. The mistress sent her own daughter there, and she had hardly arrived at the house when she began at once to do as her half-sister had told her; she disarranged everything, to make the house look untidy and uncared for. And when she heard the fairies coming in she hid behind the door. The little dog saw her, and barking at her said, "Behind the door stands one who has done us much harm, and will still continue to molest us. Bow, bow, bow, behind the door stands one who has done us much harm, and will continue to molest us on the first opportunity." The fairies hearing this approached her, and one began to say, "I throw a spell over you which will render you the ugliest maid that can be found." The next one took up the word and said, "I bewitch you, so that when you attempt to speak all manner of filth shall fall out of your mouth." And the third fairy said, "I also bewitch you, and you shall become the poorest and most wretched maid in existence." The mistress's daughter returned home, thinking she was looking quite a beauty; but when she came up close to her mother, and began to speak, the mother burst out crying on seeing her own daughter so disfigured and wretched. Full of rage, she sent her step-daughter to the kitchen, saying, that she was the hearth-cat, and that she should take care that she kept there, as the only place which was fit for her. On a certain day the mistress and her daughter