the gate, so he thought to himself, 'Now there's no time to be lost';
and, grasping his sledge-hammer, he hurled it into the opening of the
door just as the tailor slunk in; and if the Smith didn't get in
then, when the door was ajar, why I don't know what has become of
him.




THE TWO STEP-SISTERS

Once on a time there was a couple, and each of them had a daughter by
a former marriage. The woman's daughter was dull and lazy, and could
never turn her hand to anything, and the man's daughter was brisk and
ready; but somehow or other she could never do anything to her
stepmother's liking, and both the woman and her daughter would have
been glad to be rid of her.

So it fell one day the two girls were to go out and spin by the side
of the well, and the woman's daughter had flax to spin, but the man's
daughter got nothing to spin but bristles.

'I don't know how it is', said the woman's daughter, 'you're always
so quick and sharp, but still I'm not afraid to spin a match with
you.'

Well, they agreed that she whose thread first snapped, should go down
the well. So they span away; but just as they were hard at it, the
man's daughter's thread broke, and she had to go down the well. But
when she got to the bottom she saw far and wide around her a fair