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Slavonic Fairy Tales.

derous club in the ground, knelt down near it, and knowing that the boy was destined to become a priest, vowed that he would wait for him on that same spot until he should return a bishop.

Many years passed away before the once little boy came to be raised to the dignity of a bishop.

One day the bishop, passing through a dense, gloomy forest, smelt a sweet odour of apples. He asked some of his servants to find the tree, and to bring him some of the fruit. The servants soon returned from their search and informed the bishop that they had discovered the tree, which was full of apples, but that they could not get any of them, and that an old man was kneeling beside it.

The bishop went to the spot, and what was his surprise, when, in the old, grey-haired man, with a beard reaching to the ground, he recognised the desperate robber Madey!

The robber, full of repentance and sorrow for the past, entreated the bishop to hear his confession and grant him absolution. His request was readily granted. The bishop's attendants saw with surprise that during the confession the apples on the tree, one after another, changed into snow-white doves, flew up, and disappeared in the skies. Soon there was only one apple left; it was the soul of Madey's father whom he had murdered;