who was hungry and could not wait for his supper, came out
of the brook with a rushing noise, and made straight for the tree. Two
eyes of flame came creeping nearer, nearer, and two fiery tongues were
stretching themselves out closer, closer, to the little birds who were
trembling and shuddering in the farthest corner of the nest. But just
as the tongues had almost reached them, the lindworm gave a fearful cry,
and turned and fell backwards. Then came the sound of battle from the
ground below, and the tree shook, though there was no wind, and roars
and snarls mixed together, till the eaglets felt more frightened
than ever, and thought their last hour had come. Only Wildrose was
undisturbed, and slept sweetly through it all.

In the morning the eagle returned and saw traces of a fight below the
tree, and here and there a handful of yellow mane lying about, and here
and there a hard scaly substance; when he saw that he rejoiced greatly,
and hastened to the nest.

'Who has slain the lindworm?' he asked of his children; there were so
many that he did not at first miss the two which the lindworm had eaten.
But the eaglets answered that they could not tell, only that they had
been in danger of their lives, and at the last moment they had been
delivered. Then the sunbeam had struggled through the thick branches and
caught Wildrose's golden hair as she lay curled up in the corner, and
the eagle wondered, as he looked, whether the little girl had brought
him luck, and it was her magic which had killed his enemy.

'Children,' he said, 'I brought her here for your dinner, and you have
not touched her; what is the meaning of this?' But the eaglets did not
answer, and Wildrose opened her eyes, and seemed seven times lovelier
than before.

From that day Wildrose lived like a little princess. The eagle flew
about the wood and collected the softest, greenest moss he could find to
make her a bed, and then he picked with his beak all the brightest and
prettiest flowers in the fields or on the mountains to decorate it. So
cleverly did he manage it that there was not a fairy in the whole of the
forest who would not have been pleased to sleep there, rocked to and fro
by the breeze on the treetops. And when the little ones were able to fly
from their nest he taught them where to look for the fruits and berries
which she loved.

So the time passed by, and with each year Wildrose grew taller and more
beautiful, and she lived happily in he