PRETTY MARUSCHKA

AR away inthe hazy purple of antiquity,
when all stepmothers were wicked,
and all younger sons were successful,
there lived on the confines of a forest
a woman who had two daughters: the
one her own, the other only a step-
child. Naturally, the love of the
mother was concentrated on her own Helena, and,
as naturally, she disliked Maruschka, who was the
fairest, the gentlest, and the most pious of the
two girls.

Little did pretty Maruschka know of her own
surpassing beauty—a fact proving to us how
remote from the present age was that in which
these damsels lived. Her hair was like the waving
gold of the cornfield when the wind soughs over
it, and her eyes were as the blue forget-me-not
which smiles and glimmers in a quiet nook by the
brookside. She was slim and graceful; her step
was light, for her heart was free. Wherever she
went she brought cheerfulness and smiles; like
the little golden sunbeams which pierce among
the tfee-shadows of a forest, and light up unex-
pected beauties where all before was gloom; now
painting a saffron butterfly, now kindling an

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PRETTY
MAR-
USCHKA