` Yes , ' answered Jegu , ' I remember it very well , and I opened the net and let him go . ' ` Well , I was that robin redbreast , and ever since I have vowed to be your friend , and as you want to marry Barbaik , I will prove the truth of what I say by helping you to do so . ' ` Ah ! my little brownie , if you can do that , there is nothing I wo n't give you , except my soul . ' ` Then let me alone , ' rejoined the dwarf , ` and I promise you that in a very few months you shall be master of the farm and of Barbaik . ' ` But how are you going to do it ? ' exclaimed Jegu wonderingly . ` That is my affair . Perhaps I may tell you later . Meanwhile you just eat and sleep , and do n't worry yourself about anything . ' Jegu declared that nothing could be easier , and then taking off his hat , he thanked the dwarf heartily , and led his horses back to the farm . Next morning was a holiday , and Barbaik was awake earlier than usual , as she wished to get through her work as soon as possible , and be ready to start for a dance which was to be held some distance off . She went first to the cow-house , which it was her duty to keep clean , but to her amazement she found fresh straw put down , the racks filled with hay , the cows milked , and the pails standing neatly in a row . ` Of course , Jegu must have done this in the hope of my giving him a dance , ' she thought to herself , and when she met him outside the door she stopped and thanked him for his help . To be sure , Jegu only replied roughly that he did n't know what she was talking about , but this answer made her feel all the more certain that it was he and nobody else . The same thing took place every day , and never had the cow-house been so clean nor the cows so fat . Morning and evening Barbaik found her earthen pots full of milk and a pound of butter freshly churned , ornamented with leaves . At the end of a few weeks she grew so used to this state of affairs that she only got up just in time to prepare breakfast . Soon even this grew to be unnecessary , for a day arrived when , coming downstairs , she discovered that the house was swept , the furniture polished , the fire lit , and the food ready , so that she had nothing to do except to ring the great bell which summoned the labourers from the fields to come and eat it . This , also , she thought was the work of Jegu , and she could not help feeling that a husband of this sort would be very useful to a girl who liked to lie in bed and to amuse herself .
Indeed , Barbaik had only XXXXX express a wish for it to be satisfied .
At about as except for of outside since that to