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DORMA. U 5
turt at that, I own, but all I did about it was to tell
them to keep the child out of my turret of the palace ;
and another thing I told them was never to let her learn
to spin, for as surely as she did she would come to
" I should not think she would have cared much for
that,"
remarked Rhoda.
" Bless you, child, did you ever go idle a whole day
long? A woman who can't spin and is not allowed to
do housework is like a three-legged kitten, or a lamewinged
bird, or a candle without a blaze ;
she can't do
what she was made to do."
" But I can't spin," persisted Rhoda.
'
Pshaw, child ! you can sew and knit, can't you ?
Itrs all the same thing, except that a hundred years ago,
when all this happened, everybody spun more than they
sewed or knit, and now they don't.
" Well, to make a long story short, I told them to keep
Donna out of my turret and away from a spinning-wheel :
very well, they minded until the girl was about seventeen,
when that stupid Fair One with the Golden Locks took
it into her head to die.
Donna, being left to herself, and
rather wretched at losing her mother, got in a way of
wandering about the palace : at last, one unlucky day she
found the key of my turret door, and let herself in. As
ill-luck would have it,
I was away, and had left my rock,
and distaff, and spindle all in plain sight, with nobody to
stop the little fool's meddling. So she seized upon the