ne am unfortunate and have no children.' No sooner had she
said these words than, to her intense surprise, the little snake looked
up into her face and spoke: 'Since you have no children, be a mother to
me instead, and I promise you will never repent it, for I will love you
as if I were your own son.'

At first Sabatella was frightened to death at hearing a snake speak,
but plucking up her courage, she replied, 'If it weren't for any other
reason than your kindly thought, I would agree to what you say, and I
will love you and look after you like a mother.'

So she gave the snake a little hole in the house for its bed, fed it
with all the nicest food she could think of, and seemed as if she never
could show it enough kindness. Day by day it grew bigger and fatter, and
at last one morning it said to Cola-Mattheo, the peasant, whom it always
regarded as its father, 'Dear papa, I am now of a suitable age and wish
to marry.'

'I'm quite agreeable,' answered Mattheo, 'and I'll do my best to find
another snake like yourself and arrange a match between you.'

'Why, if you do that,' replied the snake, 'we shall be no better than
the vipers and reptiles, and that's not what I want at all. No; I'd much
prefer to marry the King's daughter; therefore I pray you go without
further delay, and demand an audience of the King, and tell him a snake
wishes to marry his daughter.'

Cola-Mattheo, who was rather a simpleton, went as he was desired to the
King, and having obtained an audience, he said, 'Your Majesty, I have
often heard that people lose nothing by asking, so I have come to inform
you that a snake wants to marry your daughter, and I'd be glad to know
if you are willing to mate a dove with a serpent?'

The King, who saw at once that the man was a fool, said, in order to get
quit of him, 'Go home and tell your friend the snake that if he can turn
this palace into ivory, inlaid with gold and silver, before to-morrow
at noon, I will let him marry my daughter.' And with a hearty laugh he
dismissed the peasant.

When Cola-Mattheo brought this answer back to the snake, the little
creature didn't seem the least put out, but said, 'To-morrow morning,
before sunrise, you must go to the wood and gather a bunch of green
herbs, and then rub the threshold of the palace with them, and you'll
see what will happen.'

Cola-Mattheo, who was, as I have said before, a great simpleton, made no
reply; but before sunrise next morning he went t