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The prince went to the bél-tree; the bél-fruit came into his hand, and he broke it off the tree, and brought it home to his wife. “See,” he said, “here is the bél-fruit; it let me gather it at once.” And he was very proud and happy. Then he laid the fruit on a table in his room.

When he had gone out the wicked wife came, and took the fruit, and flung it away in the garden. In the night the fruit burst in two, and in it lay a lovely, tiny girl baby. The gardener, as he went round the garden early in the morning, found the little baby; and he wondered who had thrown away the beautiful fruit, and who the lovely baby girl could be. She was so tiny and so pretty, and the gardener was delighted when he saw her, for he had no children, and thought God had sent him a little child at last.

He took her in his arms and carried her to his wife.

“See,” he said, “we have never had any children, and now God has sent us this beautiful little girl.” His wife looked at the child, and she was as delighted with her as her husband was. “Yes,” she said, “God has sent us this child, and she is certainly most beautiful. I am very happy. But I have no milk for her; if only I had milk for her, I could nurse her and she would live.” And the gardener’s wife was very sad to think she had no milk in her breasts for the little child.

Then her husband said, “Let us ask God to send you milk for her.” So they prayed to God and worshipped him. And God was pleased with them both, and sent the gardener’s wife a great deal of milk.

The little girl now lived in the gardener’s house, and he and his wife took the greatest care of her, and were very happy to think they had now a child. She grew very fast, and became lovelier every day. She was more beautiful than any girl that had ever been seen, and all the people in the King’s country used to say, “How lovely the gardener’s daughter is! She is more beautiful than any princess.”

The King’s youngest son’s wicked wife heard of the child, and her heart told her, “She is the Bél-Princess.” She said nothing, but she often thought of how she could contrive to have her killed.

One day, when the gardener’s daughter was seven years old, she was out in her father’s garden, making a little garden of her own near the house-door. While she was busy over her flowers, the wicked woman’s cow strayed into the garden and began eating the plants in it. The little girl would not let it make its dinner off her father’s flowers and grass, but pushed it out of the garden.

The wicked woman was told how the gardener’s daughter had treated her cow; so she cried all day long, and pretended to be ill. When her husband asked her what was the matter, she answered, “I am sick because the gardener’s daughter has ill-treated my cow. She beat it, and turned it out of her father’s garden, and said many wicked things. If you will have the girl killed, I shall live; but if you do not kill her, I shall die.” The prince at once ordered his servants to take the gardener’s daughter the next morning to the jungle, and there kill her.

So the next morning early the servants went to the gardener’s house to take away his daughter. He and his wife cried bitterly, and begged the servants to leave the girl with them. They offered them a great many rupees, saying, “Take these rupees, and leave us our daughter.” “How can we leave you your daughter,” said the servants, “when the King’s youngest son has ordered us to take her to the jungle and kill her, that his wife may get well?”