“Kind sir, if the truth I must tell,
   At the sign of the ‘Broken Skimmer’ I dwell”;

and with that she curtsied, and was off to the forest.  But this time the young lord followed her, and watched her change her fine dress of feathers for her catskin dress, and then he knew her for his own scullery-maid.

Next day he went to his mother, and told her that he wished to marry the scullery-maid, Catskin.

“Never,” said the lady of the castle—­“never so long as I live.”

[Illustration:  She went along, and went along, and went along]

Well, the young lord was so grieved that he took to his bed and was very ill indeed.  The doctor tried to cure him, but he would not take any medicine unless from the hands of Catskin.  At last the doctor went to the mother, and said that her son would die if she did not consent to his marriage with Catskin; so she had to give way.  Then she summoned Catskin to her, and Catskin put on her coat of beaten gold before she went to see the lady; and she, of course, was overcome at once, and was only too glad to wed her son to so beautiful a maid.

So they were married, and after a time a little son was born to them, and grew up a fine little lad.  Now one day, when he was about four years old, a beggar woman came to the door, and Lady Catskin gave some money to the little lord and told him to go and give it to the beggar woman.  So he went and gave it, putting it into the hand of the woman’s baby child; and the child leant forward and kissed the little lord.

Now the wicked old cook (who had never been sent away, because Catskin was too kind-hearted) was looking on, and she said, “See how beggars’ brats take to one another!”

This insult hurt Catskin dreadfully:  and she went to her husband, the young lord, and told him all about her father, and begged he would go and find out what had become of her parents.  So they set out in the lord’s grand coach, and travelled through the forest till they came to the house of Catskin’s father.  Then they put up at an inn near, and Catskin stopped there, while her husband went to see if her father would own she was his daughter.

Now her father had never had any other child, and his wife had died; so he was all alone in the world, and sate moping and miserable.  When the young lord came in he hardly looked up, he was so miserable.  Then Catskin’s husband drew a chair close up to him, and asked him, “Pray, sir, had you not once a young daughter whom you would never see or own?”

And the miserable man said with tears, “It is true; I am a hardened sinner.  But I would give all my worldly goods if I could but see her once before I die.”

Then the young lord told him what had happened to Catskin, and took him to the inn, and afterwards brought his father-in-law to his own castle, where they lived happy ever afterwards.

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS