“Five minutes would be enough for me,” said Arminel. “I’ve got my wish cut and dry. I have been longing to tell you all day, but I thought it best to keep to our determination of this morning.”
“How strange!” said Chloe. “I am just in the same condition. I decided upon my wish almost immediately. Tell me what yours is, and I will tell you mine.”
“My wish,” said Arminel, “is to have a cow. A dun-coloured cow I think I should prefer—I can picture her so sweet and pretty—who would give milk all the year round without ever running short.”
“Excellent,” cried Chloe; “my wish goes well with yours. For what I want is a dozen hens who would each lay an egg every morning in the year without fail. I should thus have as many fresh eggs as I could possibly want, and enough to spare for setting whenever I liked. Some of my present hens are very good mothers, and would hatch them beautifully.”
“I think your wish a very good one,” said Arminel. “But now as to the fulfilment. We have now expressed our wishes distinctly, but there is no use as yet in going to look for the new cow in the shed or hens in the hen-house, seeing that there remains, alas! the third one! What can it be?”
“Could it be for a hen-house?” said Chloe; “my poor hens are not very well off in their present one, and it is right to make one’s animals comfortable; so this would be a kind-hearted wish.”
“Not more than to wish for a warm shed for my cows,” said Arminel. “Cows require much more care than hens. I daresay that is what we are meant to wish for.”
“I am certain it is not,” said Chloe. “At least, if you wish for a cow-shed, I wish for a hen-house.”
“That, of course, is nonsense,” said Arminel. “I feel sure the dwarf meant we were to agree in what we wished for. And if you were amiable and unselfish you would join with me, Chloe.”
“I might say precisely the same thing to you,” said Chloe coldly.