ures that
you are!" Then he took a sack of precious stones, and slipped behind
the rock again into his den. The girls, who were used to his
ingratitude, went on their way, and completed their business in the
town. As they were coming home again over the heath, they surprised
the dwarf, who had emptied his sack of precious stones on a little
clean place, and had not thought that any one would come by there so
late. The evening sun shone on the glittering stones, which looked so
beautiful in all their colours, that the children could not help
standing still to gaze.

"Why do you stand there gaping?" cried the dwarf, his ash-coloured
face turning vermilion with anger.

With these cross words he was going away, when he heard a loud
roaring, and a black bear trotted out of the wood towards them. The
dwarf sprang up terrified, but he could not get to his lurking hole
again--the bear was already close upon him. Then he called out in
anguish,--

"Dear Mr. Bear, spare me, and you shall have all my treasures; look
at the beautiful precious stones that lie there. Give me my life! for
what do you want with a poor thin little fellow like me? You would
scarcely feel me between your teeth. Rather seize those two wicked
girls; they will be tender morsels for you, as fat as young quails;
pray, eat them at once."

The bear, without troubling himself to answer, gave the malicious
creature one single stroke with his paw, and he did not move again.
The girls had run away, but the bear called after them, "Snow-white
and Rose-red, do not be frightened; wait, I will go with you.
Recognising the voice of their old friend, they stood still, and when
the bear came up to them his skin suddenly fell off; and behold he was
not a bear, but a handsome young man dressed all in gold.

"I am a king's son," said he; "I was changed by the wicked dwarf, who
had stolen all my treasures, into a wild bear, and obliged to run
about in the wood until I should be freed by his death. Now he has
received his well-deserved punishment."

So they all went home together to the widow's cottage, and Snow-white
was married to the prince, and Rose-red to his brother. They divided
between them the great treasures which the dwarf had amassed. The old
mother lived many quiet and happy years with her children; but when
she left her cottage for the palace, she took the two rose-trees with
her, and they stood before her window and bore every year the most
beautiful rose