irst thought, after which she could not
avoid that of work. It made her very miserable, but she feared the
consequences of being found with it undone. A few minutes before noon,
she actually got up, took her pinafore for a duster, and proceeded to
dust the table. But the wood-ashes flew about so, that it seemed
useless to attempt getting rid of them, and she sat down again to think
what was to be done. But there is very little indeed to be done when we
will not do that which we have to do.

Her first thought now was to run away at once while the sun was high,
and get through the forest before night came on. She fancied she could
easily go back the way she had come, and get home to her father's
palace. But not the most experienced traveller in the world can ever go
back the way the wise woman has brought him.

She got up and went to the door. It was locked! What could the old
woman have meant by telling her not to leave the cottage? She was
indignant.

The wise woman had meant to make it difficult, but not impossible.
Before the princess, however, could find the way out, she heard a hand
at the door, and darted in terror behind it. The wise woman opened it,
and, leaving it open, walked straight to the hearth. Rosamond
immediately slid out, ran a little way, and then laid herself down in
the long heather.

V.

The wise woman walked straight up to the hearth, looked at the fire,
looked at the bed, glanced round the room, and went up to the table.
When she saw the one streak in the thick dust which the princess had
left there, a smile, half sad, half pleased, like the sun peeping
through a cloud on a rainy day in spring, gleamed over her face. She
went at once to the door, and called in a loud voice,

"Rosamond, come to me."

All the wolves and hyenas, fast asleep in the wood, heard her voice,
and shivered in their dreams. No wonder then that the princess
trembled, and found herself compelled, she could not understand how, to
obey the summons. She rose, like the guilty thing she felt, forsook of
herself the hiding-place she had chosen, and walked slowly back to the
cottage she had left full of the signs of her shame. When she entered,
she saw the wise woman on her knees, building up the fire with
fir-cones. Already the flame was climbing through the heap in all
directions, crackling gently, and sending a sweet aromatic odor through
the dusty cottage.

"That is my part of the work," she said, rising. "Now