"You lie!" exclaimed the old woman; "bark like this:
'Bow! wow! wow! the old man's here!
Driving home your daughter dear,
Decked in gold and diamonds' sheen,
Gifts to please a royal queen.'"
So saying she ran out of the house to meet the old man, coming back in the waggon; but she stood as if thunderstruck, sobbed, and wept, and was hardly able to articulate:
"Where is my sweetest daughter?"
The old man scratched his head, and replied:
"She has met with a great misfortune; this is all I have found of her—a few bare bones, and blood-stained garments; in the wood, in the old hut ... she has been devoured by wolves."
The old woman, wild with grief and despair, gathered up her daughter's bones, went to some neighbouring cross-ways, and when a number of people had gathered together, she buried them there with weeping and lamentation; then she fell face downward on the grave—and was turned to stone.
THE REWARD OF THE GOOD LITTLE GIRL
Meanwhile a royal carriage drew up in the courtyard of the old man's cottage, bright as the sun, with four splendid horses, and the coachman cracked his whip—till the cottage fell to pieces with the sound.