, and the floor was splashed with blood. In the
background against the wall stood a table, with the bloody heads of the
squire's former wives ranged upon it. The lady dropped the key in her
horror, and on picking it up found it covered with blood-stains, which
nothing could remove, while the door stood a handbreadth open, as if an
invisible wedge had fallen between the door and the door-post.

The squire was not expected to return for a week, but he came back next
morning, and rushed upstairs in a frenzied rage, dragged his wife to the
block by her hair, and was just lifting the axe, when he was struck down
by Goose-Tony with a heavy cudgel, and bound. He was brought to justice,
and sentenced to death, and his property was adjudged to his widow, who
shortly after married the page who had saved her life.

CINDERELLA.

(KREUTZWALD.)

The Esthonian story of Tuhka-Triinu (Ash-Katie[1]), as given by
Kreutzwald, is more on the lines of the German _Aschenputtel_ than on
those of the French _Cendrillon_.

Once upon a time there lived a rich man with his wife and an only
daughter. When the mother dies, she directs her daughter to plant a tree
on her grave, where the birds can find food and shelter.[2] The father
marries a widow with two daughters, who ill-treat the motherless girl,
declaring that she shall be their slave-girl. A magpie cries from the
summit of the tree, "Poor child, poor child! why do you not go and
complain to the rowan-tree? Ask for counsel, when your hard life will be
lightened."

She goes to the grave at night, and a voice asks her to whom she should
appeal, and in whom she should trust, and she answers, "God." Then the
voice tells her to call the cock and hen to help her, when she has work
to do which she cannot perform by herself.

When the king's ball is announced, Cinderella has to dress her sisters,
after which the eldest throws lentils into the ashes, telling her to
pick them up; but this is done by the cock and hen. She is left at home
weeping, and a voice tells her to go and shake the rowan-tree. When she
had done so, a light appeared in the darkness, and she saw a woman
sitting on the summit of the tree. She was an ell high, and clothed in
golden raiment, and she held a small basket and a gold wand in her
hands. She took a hen's egg from her basket, which she turned into a
coach; six mice formed the horses, a black beetle[3] formed the
coachman, and two speckled butterflies the footm