you, I should have been frozen to death in my sleep; but now I will
not stay here longer; we will go down into the valleys."

She began to slide down the mountain, and when the sun rose, saw
beneath her a green, hidden nook, in which stood a solitary tree. She
thought she should reach it immediately; but sometimes her way was
blocked up on all sides, and she had to creep over high rocks, or
through dark chasms, often losing sight of the valley, and fearing she
never should find it. At length, however, she stood safe beneath the
blossoming tree, and there was the sparrow's nest with the young birds
in it. Rosamond fed them with her crumbs, and looking about for water
to give them, found a clear spring bubbling out from under the root of
the tree. As she bent down to dip up some of the water in her hand, a
few drops were sprinkled upon her brass fillet, and it fell from her
head. "Why, this is the very fountain," she exclaimed; "I did not know
it." When she raised her head, the free mountain wind blew through her
hair, and she felt as light-hearted and happy as the bird which had
found its nest.

She slept that night beneath the sheltering tree; the new moon shone
upon her, and the bubbling of the water lulled her into a sweeter
sleep than she had known for many nights. In the morning she gave all
her bread except one crumb to the birds, then descended the mountain,
following the stream glancing over the rocks. But at last she lost
sight of it, and instead of finding herself by the river on which the
marble town was built, she came to the little old mill near her own
home. There was Alfred hard at work, for he had hired himself out as a
miller's boy. Her mother was weeping beneath the willow by the river,
and her father was hammering at his anvil. How pleasant his great,
glowing fire looked to Rosamond, after her wanderings among the icy