At length the princess had again grown so angry, frightened, and miserable, all together, that she jumped up and hurried about the cottage with outstretched arms, trying to find the wise woman.  But being in a bad temper always makes people stupid, and presently she struck her forehead such a blow against something—­she thought herself it felt like the old woman’s cloak—­that she fell back—­not on the floor, though, but on the patch of heather, which felt as soft and pleasant as any bed in the palace.  There, worn out with weeping and rage, she soon fell fast asleep.

She dreamed that she was the old cold woman up in the sky, with no home and no friends, and no nothing at all, not even a pocket; wandering, wandering forever, over a desert of blue sand, never to get to anywhere, and never to lie down or die.  It was no use stopping to look about her, for what had she to do but forever look about her as she went on and on and on—­never seeing any thing, and never expecting to see any thing!  The only shadow of a hope she had was, that she might by slow degrees grow thinner and thinner, until at last she wore away to nothing at all; only alas! she could not detect the least sign that she had yet begun to grow thinner.  The hopelessness grew at length so unendurable that she woke with a start.  Seeing the face of the wise woman bending over her, she threw her arms around her neck and held up her mouth to be kissed.  And the kiss of the wise woman was like the rose-gardens of Damascus.

IV.

The wise woman lifted her tenderly, and washed and dressed her far more carefully than even her nurse.  Then she set her down by the fire, and prepared her breakfast.  The princess was very hungry, and the bread and milk as good as it could be, so that she thought she had never in her life eaten any thing nicer.  Nevertheless, as soon as she began to have enough, she said to herself,—­

“Ha!  I see how it is!  The old woman wants to fatten me!  That is why she gives me such nice creamy milk.  She doesn’t kill me now because she’s going to kill me then!  She is an ogress, after all!”

Thereupon she laid down her spoon, and would not eat another mouthful—­only followed the basin with longing looks, as the wise woman carried it away.

When she stopped eating, her hostess knew exactly what she was thinking; but it was one thing to understand the princess, and quite another to make the princess understand her:  that would require time.  For the present she took no notice, but went about the affairs of the house, sweeping the floor, brushing down the cobwebs, cleaning the hearth, dusting the table and chairs, and watering the bed to keep it fresh and alive—­for she never had more than one guest at a time, and never would allow that guest to go to sleep upon any thing that had no life in it All the time she was thus busied, she spoke not a word to the princess, which, with the princess, went to confirm her notion of her purposes.  But whatever she might have said would have been only perverted by the princess into yet stronger proof of her evil designs, for a fancy in her own head would outweigh any multitude of facts in another’s.  She kept staring at the fire, and never looked round to see what the wise woman might be doing.