piece of furniture and then on another. 'No, after all it is to fine
to live in a kitchen, let us place it in the guest chamber.'

So mother and daughter carried it proudly upstairs and put it on a
shelf over the fireplace; then, untying the key from the handle, they
opened the box. As before, a bright light leapt out directly the lid
was raised, but it did not spring from the lustre of jewels, but from
hot flames, which darted along the walls and burnt up the cottage and
all that was in it and the mother and daughter as well.

As they had done when the stepdaughter came home, the neighbours all
hurried to see what was the matter; but they were too late. Only the
hen-house was left standing; and, in spite of her riches, there the
stepdaughter lived happily to the end of her days.

[From Thorpe's Yule-Tide Stories.]





The Goldsmith's Fortune



Once upon a time there was a goldsmith who lived in a certain village
where the people were as bad and greedy, and covetous, as they could
possibly be; however, in spite of his surroundings, he was fat and
prosperous. He had only one friend whom he liked, and that was a
cowherd, who looked after cattle for one of the farmers in the village.