"What condition?" inquired the girl anxiously.
"That you ask us to your wedding."
"Am I going to be married?" said the girl.
"Yes," answered the souls, "to that rich man."
And so it turned out, for, when the gentleman came, the next day, and saw his waistcoat so exquisitely wrought that it seemed as though hands of flesh could not have touched it, and so beautiful that to look at it fairly took away his eyesight, he told the aunt that he wanted to marry her niece.
The aunt was ready to dance for joy. Not so the niece, who said to her: "But, madam, what will become of me when my husband finds out that I don't know how to do anything?"
"Go along! and don't make up your mind," answered the aunt. "The blessed souls that have helped you in other straits are not going to desert you in this."
On the wedding-day, when the feasting was at its height, three old women entered the parlor. They were so beyond anything ugly that the nabob was struck dumb with horror.
The first had one arm very short, and the other so long that it dragged on the ground; the second was humped and crooked; and the eyes of the third stuck out like a crab's, and were redder than a tomato.
"Jesus, Maria!" said the astonished gentleman to his bride, "who are those three scarecrows?"