The maiden contented herself with such notions until advancing age made her step down from her pedestal.  Adieu then to all suitors.  One year passed and then another.  Her anxiety increased, and after anger came grief.  She felt that those little smiles and glances which, at the bidding of love, lurk in the countenances of fair maidens were day by day deserting her.  Finally, when love himself departed, her features gave pleasure to none.  Then she had recourse to those hundred little ruses and tricks of the toilet to repair the ravages of time; but nothing that she could do arrested the depredations of that despicable thief.  One may repair a house gone to ruin:  but the same thing is not possible with a face!

Her refined ladyship now sang to a different tune, for her mirror advised her to take a husband without delay.  Perhaps also her heart harboured the wish.  Even superior persons may have longings!  This one at last made a choice that people would at one time have thought impossible; for she was very pleased and happy in marrying an ugly cripple.

IX

THE WISHES

(Book VII.—­No. 6)

When the Great Mogul held empire, there were certain little sprites who used to undertake all sorts of tasks helpful to mankind.  They would do housework, stable-work, and even gardening.  But if one interfered with them, all would be spoilt.

One of these friendly sprites cultivated the garden of a worthy family living near the Ganges.  His duties were performed deftly and noiselessly.  He loved not only his master and mistress, but the garden also.  Possibly the zephyrs, who are said to be friends of the sprites, helped him in his tasks.  At any rate he did his very best, and never ceased in his efforts to load his hosts with every pleasure.  To prove his zeal he would have stayed with these people for ever, in spite of the natural propensity of his kind for waywardness.  But his mischievous fellow-sprites fell to plotting.  They induced the chief of their band to remove him to another field of labour.  This the chief promised and, either by caprice or by policy, finally brought about.  Orders came that the devoted worker should set out for the uttermost part of Norway, there to take charge of a house which at all times of the year was covered with snow.  So from being an Indian, the poor thing became a Laplander.

“I am forced to leave you,” he said to his hosts, “but for what fault of mine this has come to pass I cannot tell.  I only know that go I must, and in a very little while too; a month perhaps, or maybe only a week.  Make the most of the interval.  Fortunately, I can fulfil three wishes for you; but not more than three.”

To mankind there is nothing very out-of-the-way in merely wishing.  These good people decided that their first wish should be for abundance, and straightway.  Abundance, by the double-handful, poured gold into their coffers; wheat into their granaries; wine into their cellars.  Repletion was everywhere.  But, alas, what cares of direction, what account keeping; what time and anxiety this affluence involved!