Isabella was a pretty child and had sweet manners. Her stepsisters were not pretty, and they and their mother were jealous of Isabella.
They seldom spoke kindly to her; they made her do the hard work of the home, and treated her in a harsh manner, very much as Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters treated Cinderella.
One of her hard duties was to fetch the water for the household from the well just outside the village.
It was quite a long walk to the well, and after Isabella had worked all the morning, cooking, and washing the dishes, and washing and ironing, or sweeping, she felt sometimes that she was too tired to go so far and carry home such a heavy load.
One day after washing and ironing, she said, “I wish one of you girls would go with me to the well to-day, and help me bring back the water. I am so tired.”
“Indeed, they shall not!” exclaimed her stepmother angrily. “What do you think—that my daughters shall wait on you?”
“I do not care to get tanned in the sun,” yawned one.
“I do not wish my hands to look as though I work,” said the other haughtily.
So Isabella set out alone. She sat down to rest several times on her way, but after a while she reached the well. It was an old-fashioned affair, and had a moss-covered bucket on a long chain which wound on a roller. It was not hard work to drop the bucket down the well, but it was hard work to turn the handle of the roller until the dripping bucket reached the top. It was still harder work to empty the bucket into the pail she carried.
This day, when Isabella came to the well there was an old woman sitting on the well-curb. She was a wretched-looking old woman. She wore an old shawl about her head and shoulders.