who watches over her flock for fear the wolf should devour them." They laid themselves down on the grass and went to sleep. The Queen left them there, believing she should never see them again. Finette had shut her eyes, but not gone to sleep. "If I were an ill-natured girl," said she to herself, "I should go home directly and leave my sisters to die here, for they beat me and scratch me till the blood comes. But notwithstanding all their malice, I will not abandon them." She aroused them, and told them the whole story. They began to cry, and begged her to take them with her, promising that they would give her beautiful dolls, a child's set of silver plate, and all their other toys and sweetmeats. "I am quite sure you will do no such thing," said Finette; "but I will behave as a good sister should, for all that." And so saying she rose, and followed the clue with the two princesses, so that they reached home almost as soon as the Queen. Whilst they were at the door, they heard the King say, "It gives me the heart-ache to see you come back alone." "Pshaw!" said the Queen, "our daughters were too great an incumbrance to us." "But," said the King, "if you had brought back my Finette, I might have consoled myself for the loss of the others, for they loved nothing and nobody." At that moment they knocked at the door—rap, rap. "Who is there?" said the King. "Your three daughters," they replied, "Fleur d'Amour, Belle-de-Nuit, and Fine-Oreille." The Queen began to tremble. "Don't open the door," she exclaimed; "it must be their ghosts, for it is impossible they could find their way back alive." The King, who was as great a coward as his wife, called out, "It is false; you are not my daughters!" but Fine-Oreille, who was a shrewd girl, said to him, "Papa, I will stoop down, and do you look at me through the hole made for the cat to come through, and if I am not Finette, I consent to be whipped." The King looked as she told him to do, and as soon as he recognised her, he opened the door. The Queen pretended to be delighted to see them again, and said, "that she had forgotten something, and had come home to fetch it; but that most assuredly she should have returned to them." They pretended to believe her, and went up to a snug little hay-loft, in which they always slept.
"Now, sisters," said Finette, "you promised me a doll;
