The proud cousins, in all their finery, had by this time come to the door, but nobody wanted them. No sooner was the old woman and her dog within the chariot than a wonderful change passed over them, for the ugly old woman turned at once to a beautiful young princess, with long yellow curls and a robe of green and gold; while the ugly dog at her side started up a fair young prince, with nut-brown hair and a robe of purple and silver.
"We are," said they, as the chariots drove on, "a prince and princess of Fairyland, and there was a wager between us whether or not there were good people still to be found in these false and greedy times. One said 'Yes', and the other said 'No'."
"And I have lost," said the Prince, "and must pay the feast and presents."
Childe Charity never heard any more of that story. Some of the farmer's household, who were looking after them, said the chariots had gone one way across the meadows, some said they had gone another, and till this day they cannot agree upon the way they went.
But Childe Charity went with that noble company into a country such as she had never seen—for primroses covered all the ground, and the light was always like that of a summer evening. They took her to a royal palace, where there was nothing but feasting and dancing for seven days. She had robes of pale green and velvet to wear, and slept in a room inlaid with ivory.
When the feast was done, the Prince and Princess gave her such heaps of gold and jewels that she could not carry them; but they gave her a chariot to go home in, drawn by six white horses. On the seventh night, which happened to be Christmas time, when the farmer's family had settled in their own minds that she would never come back, and were sitting down to supper, they heard the sound of her coachman's bugle, and saw her alight with all the jewels and gold at the very back door where she had brought in the ugly old woman.
The fairy chariot drove away, and never again came back to that farmhouse after. But Childe Charity scoured and scrubbed no more, for she grew a great lady, even in the eyes of her proud cousins.