rd head came up.

'Kiss me, girl!' said the head.

'As if I would kiss your ugly mouth!' said the girl.

So again the heads talked together about what they should do for this
girl who was so ill-tempered and full of her own importance, and they
agreed that she should have a nose that was four ells long, and a jaw
that was three ells, and a fir bush in the middle of her forehead, and
every time she spoke ashes should fall from her mouth.

When she came back to the cottage door with her pails, she called to her
mother who was inside, 'Open the door!'

'Open the door yourself, my own dear child!' said the mother.

'I can't get near, because of my nose,' said the daughter.

When the mother came and saw her you may imagine what a state of mind
she was in, and how she screamed and lamented, but neither the nose nor
the jaw grew any the less for that.

Now the brother, who was in service in the King's palace, had taken a
portrait of his sister, and he had carried the picture away with him,
and every morning and evening he knelt down before it and prayed for his
sister, so dearly did he love her.

The other stable-boys had heard him doing this, so they peeped through
the key-hole into his room, and saw that he was kneeling there before a
picture; so they told everyone that every morning and evening the youth
knelt down and prayed to an idol which he had; and at last they went
to the King himself, and begged that he too would peep through the
key-hole, and see for himself what the youth did. At first the King
would not believe this, but after a long, long time, they prevailed with
him, and he crept on tip-toe to the door, peeped through, and saw the
youth on his knees, with his hands clasped together before a picture
which was hanging on the wall.

'Open the door!' cried the King, but the youth did not hear.

So the King called to him again, but the youth was praying so fervently
that he did not hear him this time either.

'Open the door, I say!' cried the King again. 'It is I! I want to come
in.'

So the youth sprang to the door and unlocked it, but in his haste he
forgot to hide the picture.

When the King entered and saw it, he stood still as if he were in
fetters, and could not stir from the spot, for the picture seemed to him
so beautiful.

'There is nowhere on earth so beautiful a woman as this!' said the King.

But the youth told him that she was his sister, and that he had painted
her, and that if she