Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/17



a certain kingdom there lived a very rich nobleman, with his wife and a beautiful daughter, named Vaselesa, whom all her friends called Vaselesa the Beautiful, on account of her loveliness and sweet ways. When she was but a child of eight, her mother became so dangerously ill that all the doctors gave her up, and said that she now lay on her death-bed. One day she called Vaselesa to her bedside, and, giving her a lovely little doll, said,—

"Listen to me, my child, and remember your mother's dying words. I am about to depart this life for another, a brighter and far happier one. With a dying mother's love do I leave you this doll, which is very different from others, for she is enchanted, keep her, my darling, and show her to no one, but when ill-luck befalls you, ask her to help you. Now farewell, Vaselesa; be a good girl; obey your father, love him and cheer him when in trouble. Good-bye, little one." With these words the mother kissed her child and expired.

Some years after the death of his wife, the nobleman thought he had better marry again, on his child's B