150 COSSACK FAIRY TALES.

took off her costly raiment and put on her rags, and
waited in the window-corner till they came from
church.

When they came from church they had all sorts of
things to talk about, and how the young Tsarevich
had fallen in love with the grand young lady, and
how they were unable to tell him from whence she
came, or who she was, and the step-mother hated the
old man’s daughter all the more because she had done
her work so nicely.

But the Tsarevich did nothing but pine away.
And they proclaimed throughout the kingdom:
‘Who has lost a pair of golden slippers?” But none
could tell. Then the Tsar sent his wise councillors
throughout the kingdom to find her. “If ye do not
find her,” said he, ‘it will be the death of my child,
and then ye also are dead men.”

Se the Tsar’s councillors went through all the
towns and villages, and measured the feet of all the
maidens with the golden slippers, and she was to be
the bride of the Tsarevich whom the golden shppers
fitted. They went to the houses of all the princes,
and all the nobles, and all the rich merchants, but it
was of no avail. The feet of all the maidens were
either too little or too laree. Then they hied them
to the huts of the peasants.

They went on and on, they measured and measured,