PATRICK KENNEDY

THERE was once a King and Queen that lived very
happily together, and they had twelve sons and not a
single daughter. We are always wishing for what we
haven't, and don't care for what we have, and so it was
with the Queen. One day in winter, when the bawn
was covered with snow, she was looking out of the parlor
window, and saw there a calf that was just killed by the
butcher, and a raven standing near it. "Oh," says she,
"if I had only a daughter with her skin as white as that
snow, her cheeks as red as that blood, and her hair as
black as that raven, I'd give away every one of my
twelve sons for her." The moment she said the word,
she got a great fright, and a shiver went through her,
and in an instant after, a severe-looking old woman
stood before her. "That was a wicked wish you made,"
said she, "and to punish you it will be granted. You
will have such a daughter as you desire, but the very
day of her birth you will lose your other children." She
vanished the moment she said the words.

And that very way it turned out. When she ex-
pected her delivery, she had her children all in a large
room of the palace, with guards all round it, but the
very hour her daughter came into the world, the guards

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