“O, no,” said Paulina.  “I could not take the time.  I must hurry on to my father.  But it would be lovely if we could only ride in this beautiful sleigh.”

“You could spend the night with us, and then we could set you on your way, because you have been so kind to me,” the man told her.

The servants were willing to let them ride in the beautiful sleigh, and soon they were speeding over the snow toward the great city.  Once, the stranger took a scarf from a pocket on the side of the sleigh and threw it about his neck.  Paulina frowned, and promptly placed it back in the pocket.

“It isn’t right for you to touch anything in the sleigh.  It belongs to someone else.  I am beginning to fear that you may not be an honest man,” she said gravely.

The stranger laughed at her, but he did not take the scarf again.  They sped on over the snow until, as darkness fell, they reached the city.  Soon they entered a large courtyard, and the stranger took Paulina’s hand and led her into a narrow passageway, and up a small winding stairway.

“Where are you taking me?” asked Paulina.  “I feel almost sure now, that you are not an honest man.  I think that you may even be a thief!”

The man laughed again.

“No, I am an honest man.  You will believe me when you see my little daughter.  I trusted you in the forest.  Now you trust me.”

He led her into a large room, and they sat down upon a sofa.

“We will wait here until my daughter comes,” he said.

Soon the door opened, and a beautiful little girl, about as large as Paulina, came toward them.  She looked puzzled when she saw the rough-looking man with the little girl.  She went close to the stranger and looked into his face.

“It is my father!” she cried, and threw her arms around his neck.

“But why are you dressed like a peasant?  Has there been an accident?  And who is this little stranger?”

The man took her on his lap and told her how his sleigh had been overturned in the storm, and how he had found his way to a peasant’s hut, where they had given him dry clothes to put on, and how he had started out alone to find his way through the forest; and how he was nearly perishing with cold and hunger when this little girl had rescued him, and how, if it had not been for her, he would have died in the snow in the forest.  He told her how little Paulina was on her way to Siberia to find her father, and how they went to the woodsman’s hut where a servant had found him, and how he had planned for the sleigh to meet them on the other side of the forest.

“O,” Paulina interrupted him, “then there was somebody talking with you when we were preparing the evening meal?”

“Yes, and everything came out just as I had planned.  And do you know, little daughter, this Paulina would not let me put my own scarf around my neck.  She thought that I was a thief.  She is an honest little girl.  But she will not tell me her name.  She does not trust me.”