Page:Russian Fairy Book (N. H. Dole).djvu/44

26 then he set to work to find the flower. He searched and searched, but nothing of the sort was to be found. He felt disappointed, and started to go home. He had hardly passed the city gate when he met by chance a very old, old man who carried in his hand a ruby-red flower.

"My dear little old man, sell me your ruby-red flower," he said.

"It is not for sale, it is a keepsake," replied the stranger; "but if you will let your youngest daughter marry my son, Finist the Bright-Hawk, then I will let you have the ruby-red flower for nothing."

The father thought the matter over in his mind.

"If I don't get the flower my dear little daughter will be bitterly disappointed, but if I take it I shall have to give her in marriage, and God knows who her husband will be."

He thought it over and he thought it over, but finally he decided to take the ruby-red flower.

"After all, what is the harm?" he asked himself. "Even after they are engaged, if it does not look well, we can break it off."

He drove home, gave his two oldest daughters their ear-rings, and to the youngest he handed the little flower, saying: "I do not like your little