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Rh all I have to say is, that you must make a very bad use of your youth and beauty, if you can't find this out.'

"So Padminî asked her husband again, 'Where do those cakes come from?' 'By the favour of destiny,' he replied; 'for it has been said, "Fate, if it is on your side will accomplish your wishes. She will bring you what you want, even from a distant island, from the ends of the world, from the bottom of the sea. Once upon a time a mouse, making a hole for itself, fell into the jaws of a serpent. The serpent could not find anything to eat and was in the last stage of starvation, but refreshed by the lucky meal he went on his way rejoicing. So fate is the cause of man's rise or fall.

"Padminî, when she found her husband would not tell her, refused to eat. He was put in a difficulty and said: 'If I tell you what you want to know disaster will follow, and you will be sorry for it.' Padminî, however, took no heed of warnings, but continued obstinate, and at last her husband was obliged to tell her; for it is said, 'When the gods want to ruin a man, they first take away his senses, so that he does not know evil from good.'

"Then, your majesty," continued the Brâhman's