had to run
till, from very fatigue, her rudeness ceased. Her heart gave way; she
burst into tears, and ran on silently weeping.

A minute more and the wise woman stooped, and lifting her in her arms,
folded her cloak around her. Instantly she fell asleep, and slept as
soft and as soundly as if she had been in her own bed. She slept till
the moon went down; she slept till the sun rose up; she slept till he
climbed the topmost sky; she slept till he went down again, and the
poor old moon came peaking and peering out once more: and all that time
the wise woman went walking on and on very fast. And now they had
reached a spot where a few fir-trees came to meet them through the
moonlight.

At the same time the princess awaked, and popping her head out between
the folds of the wise woman's cloak--a very ugly little owlet she
looked--saw that they were entering the wood. Now there is something
awful about every wood, especially in the moonlight; and perhaps a
fir-wood is more awful than other woods. For one thing, it lets a
little more light through, rendering the darkness a little more
visible, as it were; and then the trees go stretching away up towards
the moon, and look as if they cared nothing about the creatures below
them--not like the broad trees with soft wide leaves that, in the
darkness even, look sheltering. So the princess is not to be blamed
that she was very much frightened. She is hardly to be blamed either
that, assured the wise woman was an ogress carrying her to her castle
to eat her up, she began again to kick and scream violently, as those
of my readers who are of the same sort as herself will consider the
right and natural thing to do. The wrong in her was this--that she had
led such a bad life, that she did not know a good woman when she saw
her; took her for one like herself, even after she had slept in her
arms.

Immediately the wise woman set her down, and, walking on, within a few
paces vanished among the trees. Then the cries of the princess rent the
air, but the fir-trees never heeded her; not one of their hard little
needles gave a single shiver for all the noise she made. But there were
creatures in the forest who were soon quite as much interested in her
cries as the fir-trees were indifferent to them. They began to hearken
and howl and snuff about, and run hither and thither, and grin with
their white teeth, and light up the green lamps in their eyes. In a
minute or two a whole army of wolv