Breakfast was of course her first 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 you do yours.  But first let me remind you that if you had not put it off, you would have found it not only far easier, but by and by quite pleasant work, much more pleasant than you can imagine now; nor would you have found the time go wearily:  you would neither have slept in the day and let the fire out, nor waked at night and heard the howling of the beast-birds.  More than all, you would have been glad to see me when I came back; and would have leaped into my arms instead of standing there, looking so ugly and foolish.”