It was the old dame that caused the sisters' quarrel. A few miles from the cabin she appeared, creeping through the dusty road, with a bundle of sticks three times as big as herself on her head.
"Pretty well!" exclaimed Maud. "The old creature could not find strength enough to walk a little way with me; but she can pick up sticks all day for herself, and carry home more than I could even lift."
The dame made no reply; perhaps she did not hear the beauty's words; but Maud was so vexed that she brushed roughly past, and upset all her sticks, and the poor old dame in the midst of them.
The fairy lifted her wrinkled arm, which was covered with bleeding scratches, and shook her finger angrily at Maud, who only laughed, and said, "It is good enough for you; take care, next time, how you stand in my way. I am the one to be angry, after you've scattered your sharp old sticks all over the road to fray my new silk stockings. Come, Daisy, make a path for me through them."
Daisy helped the dame to her feet again, and wiped away the dust and blood, and bound the arm up with her own handkerchief, and then began patiently to pick up all the sticks, and fasten them in a bundle.
She did this while Maud and the fairy were quarrelling and reproaching each other. We could often make up for a fault or accident in the time which we spend mourning over it and deciding whose was the fault.
Maud, in her heart, was not sorry for what her sister had now done, because she feared the fairy, and knew, if she went too far in offending her, that she might never appear again; and then Miss Maud would eat coarse food, and wear shabby clothes, like her sister Daisy.
Still she pretended to be angry, and scolded Daisy well for undoing what she had done, and comforting the old woman when she chose to punish her.
Yet more vexed was she when Daisy took the sticks on her own head; for the dame seemed tired and faint, and trembled like a leaf from the fright and pain of her fall.
Maud drew herself up haughtily, and asked if she was expected to walk in a public road in company with a lame old hag and a fagot girl. Her eyes flashed, and the color glowed in her delicate cheeks, as she spoke; Daisy thought she had never seen her sister look so beautiful, and even took out the glasses that she might look more closely at the handsome face.