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Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock, 1826-1887

"The Fairy Book The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew"


"I am a king's son," said he; "I was changed by the wicked dwarf, who
had stolen all my treasures, into a wild bear, and obliged to run
about in the wood until I should be freed by his death. Now he has
received his well-deserved punishment."
So they all went home together to the widow's cottage, and Snow-white
was married to the prince, and Rose-red to his brother. They divided
between them the great treasures which the dwarf had amassed. The old
mother lived many quiet and happy years with her children; but when
she left her cottage for the palace, she took the two rose-trees with
her, and they stood before her window and bore every year the most
beautiful roses--one white and the other red.


JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK.

In the days of King Alfred, there lived a poor woman, whose cottage
was in a remote country village, many miles from London. She had been
a widow some years, and had an only child named Jack, whom she
indulged so much that he never paid the least attention to anything
she said, but was indolent, careless, and extravagant. His follies
were not owing to a bad disposition, but to his mother's foolish
partiality. By degrees, he spent all that she had--scarcely anything
remained but a cow. One day, for the first time in her life, she
reproached him: "Cruel, cruel boy! you have at last brought me to
beggary.


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