"They had huge loaves of milk-bread and cakes with raisins——"
"Had they also peaches?" asked the boy, with his mouth full, whilst the juice of his own luscious peach was trickling down his chin.
"Yes; they had also grapes, melons and pomegranates; so when every guest had eaten till he could hardly stand, all squatted on the floor and sucked sticks of sugar-candy. When the eight days' feasting was over, the bridegroom weighed himself and, to his dismay, found that he was eight pounds lighter than on the eve of his marriage."
"Why?" asked the child, with widely-opened eyes.
"Because," answered Milena, with a slight smile and the faintest of blushes, "because, I suppose, he had danced too much."
"But if he ate till he couldn't stand?"
"Anyhow," continued Milena, "he was so frightened when he saw how much he had lost in weight that he made up his mind to run away and leave his wife at home."
"But why?" quoth the urchin.
"Because he thought that if he kept getting thin at that rate, nothing would soon be left of him. He, therefore, made a bundle of his clothes and went off in the middle of the night. He walked and walked, and after a few days, at early dawn, he got to a bleak and desolate country, where there was nothing but huge rocks, sharp flints, and sandy tracts of ground. Far off he saw a large castle, with high stone walls and big iron gates. Being very tired and not seeing either a tree or a bush as far as eye could reach, he went and knocked at one of the gates. An elderly gentleman, dressed in black, came to open, and asked him what he wanted.
"'I come,' said the bridegroom, 'to see if you are, perhaps, in want of a serving-man.'