Page:Tales of old Lusitania.djvu/96

84 to advantage on her wedding-day, and really succeeded in making herself look very pretty.

After the wedding ceremony, the man brought her to his home, and as he gazed on her charms thought himself a lucky man. At night, when she began to undress, the astonished husband found all her beauty disappearing, for her eyes, nose, hair, and the rest were false, and when taken off left her an exceedingly ugly old woman. After a while, growing tired of always having before him so unprepossessing a figure, he one day gave the old hag a push and threw her out of the window. Fortunately for her, under the window there was the low roof of a shed, and as she fell her dress was caught by one of the tiles, and there she remained all night, unable to extricate herself.

Early in the morning two witches passed by, and seeing the old woman hanging from the roof, one of them said to her: "Unfortunate creature! I suppose you are there because you are ugly? Well, never mind; I shall make your face the most beautiful that ever was seen."

That very moment the fright became a maid of surpassing loveliness.

When the husband got up in the morning, he said to himself: "I shall look out and see what has become of the old hag. Perhaps she is still lying in the road." He came to the window, and looking