on his daughters, to whom he never showed any affection at all.
One day, when it was the turn of the eldest to tend the flock, she returned at night, very late, and with eyes red and swollen with weeping. The cause of her grief soon appeared; one of the goats was missing, and the angry father lost no time in venting his wrath in shrill words of abuse and cruel blows. The poor girl crept away to bed, crying and complaining, but to all her sisters' questions she answered no word save to bid them crossly to be quiet. Yet there was something in her manner which led the other two to believe that she had met with some strange adventure, and they talked long together, wondering and guessing as to what it might have been.
The next morning the second daughter set forth to watch the goats, and returned late at night as the first had done, weary and crying bitterly, for another goat had
