would do to make you happy. Now you are a woman, and I have no
right to keep you here. You must return to the world of men,
where joy awaits you.'

'Dear lady,' entreated Elsa again. 'Do not, I beseech you, send
me from you. I want no other happiness but to live and die
beside you. Make me your waiting maid, or set me to any work you
choose, but do not cast me forth into the world. It would have
been better if you had left me with my stepmother, than first to
have brought me to heaven and then send me back to a worse
place.'

'Do not talk like that, dear child,' replied the lady; 'you do
not know all that must be done to secure your happiness, however
much it costs me. But it has to be. You are only a common
mortal, who will have to die one day, and you cannot stay here
any longer. Though we have the bodies of men, we are not men at
all, though it is not easy for you to understand why. Some day
or other you will find a husband who has been made expressly for
you, and will live happily with him till death separates you. It
will be very hard for me to part from you, but it has to be, and
you must make up your mind to it.' Then she drew her golden comb
gently through Elsa's hair, and bade her go to bed; but little
sleep had the poor girl! Life seemed to stretch before her like
a dark starless night.

Now let us look back a moment, and see what had been going on in
Elsa's native village all these years, and how her double had
fared. It is a well-known fact that a bad woman seldom becomes
better as she grows older, and Elsa's stepmother was no exception