r's wife a great deal of milk.

The little girl now lived in the gardener's house, and he and his wife
took the greatest care of her, and were very happy to think they had
now a child. She grew very fast, and became lovelier every day. She
was more beautiful than any girl that had ever been seen, and all the
people in the King's country used to say, "How lovely the gardener's
daughter is! She is more beautiful than any princess."

The King's youngest son's wicked wife heard of the child, and her
heart told her, "She is the Bel-Princess." She said nothing, but she
often thought of how she could contrive to have her killed.

One day, when the gardener's daughter was seven years old, she was out
in her father's garden, making a little garden of her own near the
house-door. While she was busy over her flowers, the wicked woman's
cow strayed into the garden and began eating the plants in it. The
little girl would not let it make its dinner off her father's flowers
and grass, but pushed it out of the garden.

The wicked woman was told how the gardener's daughter had treated her
cow; so she cried all day long, and pretended to be ill. When her
husband asked her what was the matter, she answered, "I am sick
because the gardener's daughter has ill-treated my cow. She beat it,
and turned it out of her father's garden, and said many wicked things.
If you will have the girl killed, I shall live; but if you do not kill
her, I shall die." The prince at once ordered his servants to take the
gardener's daughter the next morning to the jungle, and there kill
her.

So the next morning early the servants went to the gardener's house to
take away his daughter. He and his wife cried bitterly, and begged the
servants to leave the girl with them. They offered them a great many
rupees, saying, "Take these rupees, and leave us our daughter." "How
can we leave you your daughter," said the servants, "when the King's
youngest son has ordered us to take her to the jungle and kill her,
that his wife may get well?"

So they led the girl away; and as they went to the jungle, they said
to each other, "How beautiful this girl is!" They found her so
beautiful that they grew very sorrowful at the thought of killing her.

They took the girl to a great plain, which was about ten miles distant
from the King's country; but when they got there they said they could
not kill her. She was so beautiful that they really could not kill
her. She said to them,