At that moment the baby’s sister came to the princess and said, “Shall I go and find thee a nurse from the Hebrew women, so that she may nurse the child for thee?” Not a word did she say about whose child it was, but perhaps the princess guessed; I don’t know.  At all events, she told the little girl to go.

So the maiden went, and brought her mother!

Then the king’s daughter said to the baby’s mother, “Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee wages.”

Was not that a strange thing?  And can you think how happy the baby’s mother was?  For now the baby would be known only as the princess’s adopted child, and would be safe.

And it was so.  The mother kept him until he was old enough to be taken to the princess’s palace.  Then he was brought and given to the king’s daughter, and he became her son.  And she named him Moses.

But the strangest part of the whole story is, that when Moses grew to be a man he became so strong and wise that it was he who at last saved his people from the king and rescued them from the Egyptians.  The one child saved by the king’s own daughter was the very one the king would most have wanted to kill, if he had known.

THE TEN FAIRIES[22]

Once upon a time there was a dear little girl, whose name was Elsa.  Elsa’s father and mother worked very hard and became rich.  But they loved Elsa so much that they did not like her to do any work; very foolishly, they let her play all the time.  So when Elsa grew up, she did not know how to do anything; she could not make bread, she could not sweep a room, she could not sew a seam; she could only laugh and sing.  But she was so sweet and merry that everybody loved her.  And by and by, she married one of the people who loved her, and had a house of her own to take care of.

Then, then, my dears, came hard times for Elsa!  There were so many things to be done in the house, and she did not know how to do any of them!  And because she had never worked at all it made her very tired even to try; she was tired before the morning was over, every day.  The maid would come and say, “How shall I do this?” or “How shall I do that?” and Elsa would have to say, “I don’t know.”  Then the maid would pretend that she did not know, either; and when she saw her mistress sitting about doing nothing, she, too, sat about, idle.

Elsa’s husband had a hard time of it; he had only poor food to eat, and it was not ready at the right time, and the house looked all in a muddle.  It made him sad, and that made Elsa sad, for she wanted to do everything just right.

At last, one day, Elsa’s husband went away quite cross; he said to her, as he went out of the door, “It is no wonder that the house looks so, when you sit all day with your hands in your lap!”

Little Elsa cried bitterly when he was gone, for she did not want to make her husband unhappy and cross, and she wanted the house to look nice.  “Oh, dear,” she sobbed, “I wish I could do things right!  I wish I could work!  I wish—­I wish I had ten good fairies to work for me!  Then I could keep the house!”