That night outside the castle gate, Olga paused. She had forgotten the
charm. The day's discontent had darkened her memory as storm-clouds
darken the sky. But she grasped her necklace imperiously.

"Deck me at once!" she cried in a haughty tone. "Clothe me more
beautifully than mortal maid was ever clad before, so that I may find
favour in the Prince's sight and become the bride of the castle! I would
that I were done for ever with the spindle and the distaff!"

But the moon went under a cloud and the wind began to moan around the
turrets. The black night hawks in the forest flapped their wings
warningly, and the black bats flitted low around her head.

"Obey me at once!" she cried angrily, stamping her foot and jerking at
the necklace. But the string broke, and the beads went rolling away in
the darkness in every direction and were lost--all but one, which she
held clasped in her hand.

Then Olga wept at the castle gate; wept outside in the night and the
darkness, in her peasant's garb of tow. But after awhile through her
sobbing, stole the answering sob of the night wind.

"Hush-sh!" it seemed to say. "Sh-sh! Never a heart can come to harm, if
the lips but speak the old dame's charm."

The voice of the night wind sounded so much like the voice of the old
Flax-spinner, that Olga was startled and looked around wonderingly. Then
suddenly she seemed to see the thatched cottage and the bent form of the
lonely old woman at the wheel. All the years in which the good dame had
befriended her seemed to rise up in a row, and out of each one called a