When he drew near the water, he pulled the shabby little case out of his pocket and opened it curiously. All had happened as the frog prophesied. The purse was empty now, for he had learnt his lesson thoroughly. As he threw it into the stream he saw a little frog dive hurriedly down after it, and, while he watched, all his fine clothes slipped away from him and he was once more clad in his peasant's rags.
He wanted to see his beautiful maiden again, and, as he opened the cottage door, he was delighted to find her sitting by his mother's bedside.
"Volta," he said as he approached her, "I am poor now. Will you be my wife, although I have neither a fine castle nor jewels to offer you?"
She smiled sweetly at him as she replied shyly, "Your wealth was nothing to me, Caleb. When I refused to marry you, it was because I felt you did not care for me. I was afraid, too, of your grandeur. I know I should not have been a suitable bride for you, but now all is changed."
Very soon they were married, and the young couple settled down to live in the cottage with Caleb's mother. The old woman was completely contented with the love her son and daughter-in-law bestowed upon her. And later on, in the winter evenings, everybody would gather round the fire, and Caleb would take his children upon his knees as he related the strange things he used to do while he was the possessor of the wonderful purse.
[Illustration: VANISHED ARTS FROM THE CHRISTIAN HOME.
We who live in the present generation of this best of all possible worlds, as we may well deem it, considering that we have no experience of any other, are apt to look back on those who preceded us as benighted beings who walked by very dim lights, had few artistic perceptions, and only the most humdrum of occupations. Girls who were born before Waterloo were not very much educated, and not at all emancipated, and when we think of them we are apt to wonder how their lives dragged on without railways, without gas, without circulating libraries, magazines, or tennis.
On the whole, however, these old-fashioned lasses had no time to be dull. One whose brain was as bright as ever when Queen Victoria celebrated her first Jubilee in 1887 was questioned by a girl of the period as to her occupations when in her teens and afterwards. "My dear," she said, "there were always babies in our old house at home, and your father was the youngest of them. I had the baby clothes to make, and they wore out so fast! When I was tired of plain hemming and sewing, I used to embroider the cap crowns or quill up the clean cap borders." And this woman's mind was not in the least dwarfed or stunted by much needlework; she lived and travelled a good deal on the Continent afterwards, and kept well abreast of the literature of her day to the very end.