to such things," and she got up to leave the room.
"Well," says Jack, "I admire your spirit, and before you go let me
make you a little present."
So he handed her a purse. "Here," says he, "is a purse, and all the
days yourself and Hookedy-Crookedy live you will never want for money,
for that purse will never be empty."
Her sisters made a grab to snatch it from her, but Jack shoved them
back, and went out. And Jack rode away with the mare after dinner and
left her in the wood.
When he came back to his garden he always came in the
Hookedy-Crookedy shape and always pretended he had been off on a
message for the King.
The third day he went to the wood again. He dressed in the suit in
which he had gone to the first battle, and when he came back he went
to the castle and cleared the walls, and when the King scolded the
gate-keepers Jack told him never to mind, as that was a small trifle
to him and his mare.
A very grand dinner indeed Jack had this day, and when they chatted
after dinner the King asked him how he liked his two daughters and
their husbands.
He said he liked them very well, and asked him if he had any more
daughters in his family.
The King said no, except one foolish one who wouldn't do as he wished,
and who had fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in his
garden, and she was never to come within his sight again.
Says Jack, "I would like to see that girl."
The King said he could not refuse Jack any request he made; so he sent
for the Yellow Rose. When she came in, Jack fell into chat with her,
and did his very, very best to make her fall in love with him. But it
was of no use. He told her of all his wealth and all his grand
possessions, and said if she would marry him she should own all these,
and all the days she should live she should be the happiest woman in
the wide world, but if she married Hookedy-Crookedy, he said, she
would never be free from want and hardships, besides having an ugly
husband.
If the Yellow Rose was in a rage on the two days before, she was in a
far greater rage now. She said she wouldn't sit there to listen. She
told Jack that Hookedy-Crookedy was in her eyes a far more handsome
and beautiful man than he or than any king's son she had ever seen.
She said to Jack, that if he were ten times as handsome and a hundred
times as wealthy, she wouldn't give Hookedy-Crookedy's little finger
for himself or for all his wealth and possessions, and then she got
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