brought them no carpets. Then the Tzarevnas, angry at the loss of their rich threads, after beating the little slave-girl more cruelly than before, sent servants hastily for more material, and calling together their nurses and maidens to help them, began to work at weaving and embroidering.
In the morning when Tzarevich Ivan arose, the frog sent him to the Palace to show his carpet with his brothers.
The Tzar looked at the carpet of the eldest son and said: "Take this to the stables. It will do to cover my poorest horse when it is raining." He looked at the carpet of the second, and said: "Put this in the hall; it may do, perhaps, to wipe my boots upon in bad weather." But when Tzarevich Ivan unrolled his carpet, so wondrously was it adorned with gold and silver fashionings, that its like cannot be imagined. And the Tzar ordered that it be kept with the greatest care, to be put on his own table on the most solemn feast-days.
"Now, my dear children," he said, "your wives, my daughters-in-law, have done all that I bade them do. Bring them to-morrow, therefore, to the Palace to dine, in order that I may congratulate them in person."
The two elder brothers went home to their wives,
