balls, operas, and plays. 

Meantime, Beauty spent almost all her days in studying. Her recreation was to do good. She was to be found in every poor cottage where there was trouble or sickness, and the poor loved her as much as the rich admired her. As it was known that their father was very rich, many merchants asked the girls in marriage; but all these offers were refused, because the two eldest thought they ought at least to be wives of a rich nobleman or a prince. 

As for Beauty, she thanked those who asked her to share their fortunes, but told them that she was too young; that she wished to be her father's companion, and cheer his old age by her loving care. 

One unhappy day the merchant returned home in the evening, and told them that he was ruined; that his ships had gone down at sea, and that the firms with which he had been dealing were bankrupt. 

Beauty wept for grief, because her father was unhappy and unfortunate, and asked him what was to be done. 

"Alas! my child," he replied, "we must give up our house, and go into the country. There I can get a cottage to shelter us; and we must live by the work of our own hands." 

"Ah!" said Beauty eagerly, "I can spin and knit, and sew very well. I dare say I shall be able to help you, my dear father." 

But the elder daughters did not speak. They had made up their minds to marry one or the other of their rejected lovers, and did not intend to share their father's fallen fortunes. 

They found themselves, however, greatly mistaken. The merchants who had wished to marry them when rich cared nothing for them when poor, and never came to see them again. But those who had loved Beauty crowded to the house, and begged and besought her to marry them and share their fortunes. Beauty was grateful, but she told them that she could not leave her father in his sorrow; she must go with him to console him and work for him. The poor girl was very sorry to lose her fortune, because she could not do so much good without it; but she knew that her place was ordered for her, and that she might be quite as happy poor as rich. 

Very soon the merchant's family had to leave their noble mansion, to sell off all their costly furniture, and to go into the country, where the father and his sons got work; the former as a bailiff, the latter as farm laborers. And now Beauty had to think and work for all. 

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