mother to-day and play with your sisters." They had
to be content, for although Hindu children are as fond of asking
questions as English boys and girls, they are very obedient to their
parents and do all they are told without making any fuss about it.

Of course, they expected their father would come back the day he
started for the depths of the forest, although they knew he would
be late. What then was their surprise when darkness came and there
was no sign of him! Again and again their mother went to the door
to look for him, expecting every moment to see him coming along the
beaten path which led to their door. Again and again she mistook the
cry of some night-bird for his voice calling to her. She was obliged
at last to go to bed with a heavy heart, fearing some wild beast had
killed him and that she would never see him again.

1. What do you think had become of Subha Datta?

2. What would you have done when he did not come back?

CHAPTER II

When Subha Datta started for the forest, he fully intended to come
back the same evening; but as he was busy cutting down a tree, he
suddenly had a feeling that he was no longer alone. He looked up, and
there, quite close to him, in a little clearing where the trees had
been cut down by some other woodcutter, he saw four beautiful young
girls looking like fairies in their thin summer dresses and with
their long hair flowing down their backs, dancing round and round,
holding each other's hands. Subha Datta was so astonished at the
sight that he let his axe fall, and the noise startled the dancers,
who all four stood still and stared at him.

The woodcutter could not say a word, but just gazed and gazed at them,
till one of them said to him: "Who are you, and what are you doing in
the very depths of the forest where we have never before seen a man?"

"I am only a poor woodcutter," he replied, "come to get some wood to
sell, so as to give my wife and children something to eat and some
clothes to wear."

"That is a very stupid thing to do," said one of the girls. "You can't
get much money that way. If you will only stop with us we will have
your wife and children looked after for you much better than you can
do it yourself."

3. What would you have said if you had been the woodcutter?

4. Do you think the fairies really meant that they could do as they
offered?

CHAPTER III

Subha Datta, though he certainly did love his wife and children, was
so tempted