All night the old Oak, tapping on the thatch, called down, "Thou'rt
forgotten! Thou'rt forgotten!"

But the beads that had rolled away in the darkness, buried themselves in
the earth, and took root, and sprang up, as the old woman knew they
would do. There at the castle gate they bloomed, a strange, strange
flower, for on every stem hung a row of little bleeding hearts.

One day the Princess Olga, seeing them from her window, went down to
them in wonderment.

"What do you here?" she cried, for in her forest life she'd learned all
speech of bird and beast and plant.

"We bloom for love's sweet sake," they answered. "We have sprung from
the old Flax-spinner's gift--the necklace thou didst break and scatter.
From her heart's best blood she gave it, and her heart still bleeds to
think she is forgotten."

Then they began to tell the story of the old dame's sacrifices, all the
seventy times seven that she had made for the sake of the maiden, and
Olga grieved as she listened, that she could have been so ungrateful.
Then she brought the Prince to hear the story of the strange, strange
flowers, and when he had heard, together they went to the lowly cottage
and fetched the old Flax-spinner to the castle, there to live out all
her days in ease and contentment.

"See now," she whispered to the Oak at parting, but sturdily he held his
ground, persisting, "Thou _wouldst_ have been forgotten, save for that