"I will lend you a pair of fur boots, I have below; they are sure to fit your small feet, Princess," answered Pilgrim. "And here is the skin—I mean the fur cloak of Petrowitsch the sorcerer. You must come with me this very moment, my well-beloved Franzl of Knuslingen! You must cease spinning your magic threads, and leave your magic wheel here; unless it thinks fit to walk after us on its wooden legs." So saying, Pilgrim bowed to Franzl and offered her his arm, as if to lead her to a banquet.
Franzl was utterly confounded. Luckily her sister-in-law came home at this moment, and she seemed to have no objections to Franzl being carried off in a sledge. She assisted to help old Franzl to pack her things; but the old woman made her leave the room, for she wished above all to pack up a certain secret shoe carefully.
"I have my own feather bed here," said Franzl, "do you think you could put it on the sledge?"
"Let Knuslingen sleep on it in peace," answered Pilgrim; "make a footstool of your pillow, and leave all the rest."
"Must I leave my hens and my geese here too? They are my own, they all belong to me; and my beautiful gold speckled hen has been laying for the last six weeks."
The bepraised lady stuck her head out, between the bars of the coop, and showed her red comb.
Pilgrim said that hens and geese all ran after the veritable Cinderella of their own accord; and that if these chose to do the same, no one wished to prevent them, but that they certainly would not be taken in the sledge.
Franzl now charged her sister-in-law to pay the greatest attention to the cherished creatures she left behind: she was to take care of them, to feed them well, and to send them to her when a man came for them.
When Franzl was leaving the room, the hens began to cackle uneasily in their coop, and even the geese said a friendly word of regret as she passed them.
It was a fine, bright winter night when Franzl drove off with Pilgrim; the stars glittered above, and a heaven filled with shining stars arose within Franzl's soul. She often laid hold of her bundle, and pressed it till she felt her shoe was safe there; and often, as they dashed along, she thought it was all a dream.