Page:Little Ellie and Other Tales (1850).djvu/56

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The Tinder-Box.

with the pieces made a bag. This bag she had filled with the most finely-sifted flour, and tied it with her own hands round the Princess’s neck. When this was done, she took her golden scissors and cut a small hole in the bag, just large enough to let the flour run slowly out when the Princess moved.

The dog came again in the night, took the Princess on his back, and ran off with her to the soldier, who wanted so much only to look at her, and who would have given any thing to be a Prince, so that he might marry the Princess.

But the dog did not observe that his track from the palace to the soldier’s house was marked with the flour that had run out of the bag. On the following morning the King and the Queen readily saw where their daughter had been during the night; and therefore they ordered the soldier to be arrested and put into prison.

There now sat the poor soldier in prison, and it was so dark too in his cell; besides, the jailor told him that he was to be hang-

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