our father's palace, and looked at all the ornaments there till we know them by heart. Let us now enter into that chamber which our father told us not to enter."
"Woe is me, dear sister!" said the youngest damsel. "I wonder that thou shouldst persuade us to tread underfoot the precepts of our father. When our father told us not to enter there, he must needs have known what he was saying, and why he told us so to do."
"Dost thou fancy, silly, that there's some evil serpent there that will eat us, or some other foul beast perhaps?" cried the middle sister. "Besides, how is papa to know whether we were there or not?"
Talking and arguing thus, they had reached the door of the chamber, and the eldest sister, who was the guardian of the keys, popped the key into the key-hole, and turning it round—crack-rack!—the door flew wide open.
The damsels entered.
What do you think they saw there? The room was bare of furniture, but in the middle of it stood a large table covered with a beautiful cloth, and on the top of it was a wide-open book.
The girls, all full of impatience, wanted to find out what was written in this book, and the eldest went up to it and read these words: "The eldest daughter
