Page:Europa's Fairy Book.djvu/75

 Rh "Please your Majesty, I said that if I were the king's wife, I would bear him two children: a son with a sun on his forehead, and a daughter with a moon on her brow."

"If that is true," replied the king, "you shall be my queen; if not, you shall die," and straightway he married her.

Very soon the two older sisters began to be envious of the youngest. "Look," said they; "she is going to be queen, and we must be servants!" and they began to hate her. A few months before the queen's children were to be born, the king declared war, and was obliged to go with his army, but he left word that if the queen had two children: a son with a sun on his forehead, and a girl with a moon on her brow, the mother was to be respected as queen; if not, he was to be informed of it, and would tell his servants what to do. Then he departed for the war.

When the queen's children were born, a son with a sun on his forehead and a daughter with a moon on her brow, as she had promised, the envious sisters bribed the nurse to put little dogs in the place of the queen's children, and sent word to the king that his wife had given birth to two puppies. He wrote back that she should be taken care of for two weeks, and then put into a treadmill.

Meanwhile the nurse took the little babies, and carried them out of doors, saying: "I will make