Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/268

252 into the furnace, where she was burnt up to her bones, which alone were left whole. When the coachman brought the two pails of milk the devil poured them into a very large tub, and taking all the bones threw them into the milk. And in about three minutes out came a young lady, alive and beautiful!

She thanked the devil, and seating herself in her carriage drove home to her husband, who stared at her in amazement when she entered the room in which he sat, and did not recognize his wife!

"Why do you stand staring there, like an idiot?" cried the lady. "Don't you see that I have become young and stately again? But now I do not wish to have a husband who is old and grey, so go to the blacksmith at once and be made young again, or I do not wish to know you, or have anything more to do with you. Go!"

The husband had to obey, or he knew he would suffer for it; so away he went.

Meanwhile the real blacksmith had returned, and on going into the smithy he found his workman missing. He searched and searched, but all in vain. He asked his neighbours whether they had seen him; but no, no one knew anything, and no trace of him was to be found. The blacksmith then set to work by himself, and began hammering away. Just as he was in the midst of his work, up drove a carriage, and the old lady's husband entered the shop.

"Make me into a young man!" he cried.

The blacksmith stared.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but are you in