although he always smiled at her when they met, she felt she hardly
dared to hope that it was he. Early in the morning she got up and said
her prayers to God, put the whole hut in order, and packed her things
into a little box. That was easy, because she had such few things. It
was the other daughters who had new dresses. Any old thing was good
enough for Martha. But she put on her best blue dress, and there she
was, as pretty a little maid as ever walked under the birch trees in
spring.

The old man harnessed the mare to the sledge and brought it to the
door. The snow was very deep and frozen hard, and the wind peeled the
skin from his ears before he covered them with the flaps of his fur
hat.

"Sit down at the table and have a bite before you go," says the old
woman.

The old man sat down, and his daughter with him, and drank a glass of
tea and ate some black bread. And the old woman put some cabbage soup,
left from the day before, in a saucer, and said to Martha, "Eat this,
my little pigeon, and get ready for the road." But when she said "my
little pigeon," she did not smile with her eyes, but only with her
cruel mouth, and Martha was afraid. The old woman whispered to the old
man: "I have a word for you, old fellow. You will take Martha to her
betrothed, and I'll tell you the way. You go straight along, and then
take the road to the right into the forest ... you know ... straight
to the big fir tree that stands on a hillock, and there you will give
Martha to her betrothed and leave her. He will be waiting for her, and
his name is Frost."