Page:Fairy Tales from Brazil.djvu/201

 and splendid trees where birds loved to sing sweet songs and build their nests. In spite of his beautiful home the young man was not very happy. It was a great trial to have a wife who was so black. He often walked up and down the paths in his garden at the close of the day and thought about how beautiful his wife had been the first time he ever saw her. As he walked in the garden there was always a pigeon which followed him about. It flew about his head in a way that annoyed him, so one day when his wife was sick and asked for a pigeon to be roasted for her dinner, he commanded that this particular pigeon should be killed.

When the cook was preparing the pigeon for her mistress to eat for dinner she noticed a black speck on the