But seating herself, overwhelmed with sadness, on the broad hearth-stone, she gave herself up to earnest thought; and then flinging the wondrous feather from her, she exclaimed,
“Of what use is wit and cleverness for maidens, since men rush towards beauty as the flies to sunshine! Ah, what I want, old aunt, is not to be the wisest, but the fairest on the earth.”
“Be thou also, then, the fairest,” uttered an unexpected voice.
Tephany turned round astonished, and saw at the door the old woman with her thorn-stick, who thus spoke:
“Take this necklace, and so long as you shall wear it round your neck, you shall appear amongst all other women as the queen of the meadow amidst wild flowers.”
Tephany could not repress a cry of joy. She hastened to put on the necklace, rushed to her little mirror, and there stood dumb with admiration. Never had any girl been at once so fair and so rosy, so lovely to look upon.
Anxious to judge instantly of the effect which her appearance would produce on Dénès, she decked herself out in her finest dress, her worsted stockings, and her buckled shoes, and took her way towards the new barn.
But just as she reached the cross-road, she met a young lord in his coach, who, the instant he caught sight of her, desired the coachman to stop.
“By my life,” cried he, in admiration, “I had no idea there was such a beautiful creature as this in the country; and if it were to cost me my life, she must bear my name.”
But Tephany replied, “Go on, good sir, go on your way; I am but a poor peasant-girl, accustomed to winnow, milk, and mow.”