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 164 happy here with me, dearest one, are you not?" he said; "for you have everything that your heart can wish for." This went on for some days, and then he told her that he must go away and leave her alone for a little while.

"Here are the house-keys," he said. "You can go where you like, and look at what you like; there is only one room into which I forbid you to enter on pain of death; this little key belongs to it."

He also gave her an egg, and begged her to take great care of it. "Always carry it about with you, if possible," he added, "for if it were to be lost, a great misfortune would happen."

She took the keys and the egg, and promised to carry out his wishes.

As soon as he had left she went over the house, looking at everything from top to bottom. The rooms shone with silver and gold, and she thought she had never before seen anything so splendid. At last she found herself close to the forbidden room, and was going to pass it, when her curiosity became too much for her, and she paused. First she looked at the key—it did not seem to her to be in any way different to the others; then she put it in the lock and gave it a little turn, and—the door flew open. But what a sight met her eyes as she stepped inside! There in the middle of the room stood a block, and on it lay a glittering axe, and all around there was blood upon the floor and the bodies of those who had been seized and cruelly murdered. She was so terrified that she let the egg she held in her hand fall to the ground. She picked it up and saw that there was blood upon it; she tried to wipe it off, but in vain, for rub and scrape as she would, the mark of the blood still remained.