Page:The Pentamerone, or The Story of Stories.djvu/271

Rh in order to take the model and make another like it; then they would give her the doll without any payment at all.

Pentella, who had never heard the proverb, "Think well before you buy anything cheap," instantly accepted this offer; and bidding them return the next morning, she promised to ask her father to lend her the ring. So the magicians went away, and when her father returned home, Pentella coaxed and caressed him, until at last she persuaded him to give her the ring, making the excuse that she was sad at heart, and wished to divert her mind a little.

When the next day came, as soon as the scavenger of the Sun sweeps the last trace of the Shades from the streets and squares of Heaven, the magicians returned; and no sooner had they the ring in their hands, than they instantly vanished, and not a trace of them was to be seen; so that poor Pentella had like to have died with terror.

But when the magicians came to a wood, where the branches of some of the trees were dancing the sword-dance, and the boughs of others were playing together at hot-cockles, they desired the ring to destroy the spell by which the old man had become young again. And instantly Minecco Aniello, who was just at that minute