After a few weeks the old woman sent for her maid and told her that as her year of service was now up , she was free to return home , but that , for her part , the girl had served her so well that she hoped she might stay with her . But at these words the maid shook her head , and answered gently : ' I have been happy here , Madam , and I thank you for your goodness to me ; but I have left behind me a stepsister and a stepmother , and I am fain to be with them once more . ' The old woman looked at her for a moment , and then she said : ` Well , that must be as you like ; but as you have worked faithfully for me I will give you a reward . Go now into the loft above the store house and there you will find many caskets . Choose the one which pleases you best , but be careful not to open it till you have set it in the place where you wish it to remain . ' The girl left the room to go to the loft , and as soon as she got outside , she found all the cats waiting for her . Walking in procession , as was their custom , they followed her into the loft , which was filled with caskets big and little , plain and splendid . She lifted up one and looked at it , and then put it down to examine another yet more beautiful . Which should she choose , the yellow or the blue , the red or the green , the gold or the silver ? She hesitated long , and went first to one and then to another , when she heard the cats ' voices calling : ` Take the black ! take the black ! ' The words make her look round -- she had seen no black casket , but as the cats continued their cry she peered into several corners that had remained unnoticed , and at length discovered a little black box , so small and so black , that it might easily have been passed over . ` This is the casket that pleases me best , mistress , ' said the girl , carrying it into the house . And the old woman smiled and nodded , and bade her go her way . So the girl set forth , after bidding farewell to the cows and the cats and the sparrows , who all wept as they said good-bye . She walked on and on and on , till she reached the flowery meadow , and there , suddenly , something happened , she never knew what , but she was sitting on the wall of the well in her stepmother 's yard . Then she got up and entered the house . The woman and her daughter stared as if they had been turned into stone ; but at length the stepmother gasped out : ` So you are alive after all ! Well , luck was ever against me ! And where have you been this year past ? '
Then the girl told how she had taken service in the under-world , and , beside her wages , had brought home with her a little XXXXX , which she would like to set up in her room .
Madam casket first left sparrows stepmother stepsister wall weeks year