Then she called her other daughter,--the ugly one,--told her what had
happened, and said: "Hasten, daughter! Take the silver pitcher and run
to the fountain. If the fairy has given these for a drink from a jug,
what will she give for a drink from a silver pitcher!"

The girl sulked off to the fountain swinging the pitcher and loitering
along the way. When she reached there no old woman was in sight, but
beside the spring was a tall, beautiful young woman who asked her for a
drink. The ugly one replied, "There is the pitcher, draw the water for
yourself."

When she was about to go, the young woman said sharply: "Stop! the words
that fall from your lips are evil things, and they shall look like the
things they are. Every word you speak shall be a spider or a snake,
until you learn to speak kindly."

The girl trudged off home scarcely thinking about what the woman said,
little knowing that it was the same fairy who had spoken to her sister.
But when she began to answer her mother, spiders and snakes dropped from
her lips, and she was very much frightened.

I wonder whether our words would be pearls or spiders if we could see
them? Let us make them pearls.




SUFFOCATED TREES