well. But ne'er a word did the King, her husband, say about them; so she
hoped he had forgotten.

But on the very last day of the eleventh month, the King, her husband,
led her into a room she had never set eyes on before. It had one window,
and there was nothing in it but a stool and a spinning-wheel.

"Now, my dear," he said quite kind like, "you will be shut in here
to-morrow morning with some victuals and some flax, and if by evening
you have not spun five skeins, your head will come off."

Well she was fair frightened, for she had always been such a gatless
thoughtless girl that she had never learnt to spin at all. So what she
was to do on the morrow she could not tell; for, see you, she had no one
to help her; for, of course, now she was Queen, her mother didn't live
nigh her. So she just locked the door of her room, sat down on a stool,
and cried and cried and cried until her pretty eyes were all red.

Now as she sate sobbing and crying she heard a queer little noise at the
bottom of the door. At first she thought it was a mouse. Then she
thought it must be something knocking.

So she upped and opened the door and what did she see? Why! a small,
little, black Thing with a long tail that whisked round and round ever
so fast.

"What are you crying for?" said that Thing, making a bow, and twirling
its tail so fast that she could scarcely see it.

"What's that to you?" said she, shrinking a bit, for that Thing was very