Page:Czechoslovak fairy tales.djvu/167



HERE was once a poor man whose wife died leaving him a daughter. The little girl’s name was Lenka. She was a good little girl, cheerful and obedient and very industrious, and she did all she could to make her father comfortable.

After some time the man married again. His second wife also had a little girl just Lenka’s age. Her name was Dorla. Dorla was a lazy, ill-natured child, always quarreling and bickering. Yet her mother thought Dorla was perfect and she was always praising her to her husband.

“See what a good child my Dorla is,” she would say to him. “She works and spins and never says a cross word. Very different from your good-for-nothing Lenka who always breaks everything she touches and does nothing in return for all the good food she eats!”

She never stopped nagging and scolding her poor