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THE ENCHANTED PARROT


and said, " There is no butter in the house; I must go and buy some." He gave her the money and off she started under the pretence of buying the butter, and went for a walk with her lover. Meanwhile her husband waited for her return, every moment getting more hungry and more angry. At last she was obliged to return, so she covered her head and hands, and the small coin her husband had given her with which to buy the butter, with dust. When she appeared her husband met her, and being by this time boiling over with wrath, he exclaimed: " What have you been about? What is the meaning of this delay? " With tears and sobs she pointed to the dust with which she was covered and said, " Pray, don't be angry ! I dropped the money in the dust, and I have been all this time looking for it: please brush the dust off me." Her husband, moved by her lamentations, was ashamed of his anger, and brushed off the dust with all kinds of endearing expressions.

Story XIV

There is a city called Padmavatî: a merchant lived there whose name was Dhanapala, and he