Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/234

208. Here have I been wishing for a head of gold, only to fall into trouble and die by iron. Alas, how richly I deserve it! by wishing my teeth of gold, I am making the golden tooth. This is the punishment of Heaven, for I ought to have done my father's will, and not have had such whims and fancies: he who minds not what his father and mother say, goes a road he does not know."

Not a day passed that she did not make this lament, until her eyes were become two fountains, and her face was so thin and sallow that it went to one's heart to see her. Where now were those sparkling eyes? where those rosy apples? where the little smile upon that mouth? her own father would not have known her.

At the end of a year the king's locksmith, whom Cannetella knew, happening to pass by the stable, she called to him, and went out. The smith hearing himself called by his name, and not recognizing the poor girl (she was so altered), was in utter amazement; but when he heard who she was, and how she had become thus changed, partly out of pity for the maiden and partly to gain the king's favour, he put her into an empty cask, which he had with him on a pack-horse, and trotting off towards High-Hill, he arrived at midnight at the king's palace. Then he knocked at the door, and the servants, going to the