y are not the only ones who have done the like, with the apple of
contentment hanging just above them.

As for Christine, she had nothing to do but to pluck an apple whenever
she wanted it. Was she hungry? there was the apple hanging in the tree
for her. Was she thirsty? there was the apple. Cold? there was the
apple. So you see, she was the happiest girl betwixt all the seven hills
that stand at the ends of the earth; for nobody in the world can have
more than contentment, and that was what the apple brought her.

II

One day a king came riding along the road, and all of his people with
him. He looked up and saw the apple hanging in the tree, and a great
desire came upon him to have a taste of it. So he called one of the
servants to him, and told him to go and ask whether it could be bought
for a potful of gold.

So the servant went to the house, and knocked on the door--rap! tap!
tap!

"What do you want?" said the mother of the three sisters, coming to the
door.

Oh, nothing much; only a king was out there in the road, and wanted to
know if she would sell the apple yonder for a potful of gold.

Yes, the woman would do that. Just pay her the pot of gold and he might
go and pluck it and welcome.

So the servant gave her the pot of gold, and then he tried to pluck the
apple. First he reached for it, and then he climbed for it, and then he
shook the limb.

But it was no use for him to try; he could no more get it--well--than
_I_ could if I had been in his place.

At last the servant had to go back to the King. The apple was there, he
said, and the woman had sold it, but try and try as he would he could no
more get it than he could get the little stars in the sky.

Then the King told the steward to go and get it for him; but the
steward, though he was a tall man and a strong man, could no more pluck
the apple than the servant.

[Illustration: The King reaches for the Apple]

So he had to go back to the King with an empty fist. No; he could not
gather it, either.

Then the King himself went. He knew that he could pluck it--of course he
could! Well, he tried and tried; but nothing came of his trying, and he
had to ride away at last without, having had so much as a smell of the
apple.

After the King came home, he talked and dreamed and thought of nothing
but the apple; for the more he could not get it the more he wanted
it--that is the way we are made in this world. At last he grew
melancholy and sick