The Angel smiled softly.
"To-night I shall shine upon them, and make them live," she said. "Take what you will find upon the window sill at sunrise, and sell them in the town. Bring the money back to your mother at night-time."
With the last words the Moon-Spirit melted into the white light, leaving Erik with a feeling of the happiest expectation.
Long before daybreak he was awake, and his first thought was of the wonderful ice-flowers. Would the Angel have kept her promise? What would he see awaiting him?
As the rays of the sun shot over the fiord, he sprang out of bed and ran to the window. There lay a bunch of beautiful white lilies, nestling in a mass of delicate moss-like green.
"They are the frost-flowers!" cried Erik, and wild with joy he rushed into his mother's room, and held the bunch up for her to look at.
"Look, look, mother! See what we have had given us. We shall soon have enough money to rent the little farm you have always been longing for!"
Erik's visit to the town was very successful. He sold his flowers directly, although he had some difficulty in answering all the questions of the townspeople, who wanted to know where he had grown such delicate things in the middle of a severe winter. To everyone he replied that it was a secret; and they were obliged to be contented.