out of her mouth, so that soon they were
scattered all over the room.

"Just look at her pride and conceit!" cried the step-sister, "throwing
money about in this way!" but in her heart she was jealous because of
it, and wanted to go too into the wood to fetch strawberries. But the
mother said,

"No, my dear little daughter, it is too cold, you will be frozen to
death."

But she left her no peace, so at last the mother gave in, got her a
splendid fur coat to put on, and gave her bread and butter and cakes to
eat on the way.

The girl went into the wood and walked straight up to the little house.
The three little men peeped out again, but she gave them no greeting,
and without looking round or taking any notice of them she came stumping
into the room, sat herself down by the oven, and began to eat her bread
and butter and cakes.

"Give us some of that," cried the little men, but she answered,

"I've not enough for myself; how can I give away any?"

Now when she had done with her eating, they said,

"Here is a broom, go and sweep all clean by the back door."

"Oh, go and do it yourselves," answered she; "I am not your housemaid."

But when she saw that they were not going to give her anything, she went
out to the door. Then the three little men said among themselves,

"What shall we do to her, because she is so unpleasant, and has such a
wicked jealous heart, grudging everybody everything?" The first said,

"She shall grow uglier every day." The second said,

"Each time she speaks a toad shall jump out of her mouth at every word."
The third said,

"She shall die a miserable death."

The girl was looking outside for strawberries, but as she found none,
she went sulkily home. And directly she opened her mouth to tell her
mother what had happened to her in the wood a toad sprang out of her
mouth at each word, so that every one who came near her was quite
disgusted.

The step-mother became more and more set against the man's daughter,
whose beauty increased day by day, and her only thought was how to do
her some injury. So at last she took a kettle, set it on the fire, and
scalded some yarn in it. When it was ready she hung it over the poor
girl's shoulder, and gave her an axe, and she was to go to the frozen
river and break a hole in the ice, and there to rinse the yarn. She
obeyed, and went and hewed a hole in the ice, and as she was about it
there came by a splendid coach, in which the King sat. The coac