The mother kept on waiting for her. She looked from the window, she watched from the doorstep, but her daughter came not. The hours passed slowly, but Helen did not return.
“Can it be that the apples have charmed her from her home?” thought the mother. Then she clad herself in hood and pelisse, and went in search of her daughter. Snow fell in huge masses. It covered all things. For long she wandered hither and thither, the icy northeast wind whistled in the mountain, but no voice answered her cries.
Day after day Marouckla worked, and prayed, and waited, but neither stepmother nor sister returned. They had been frozen to death on the mountain.
The inheritance of a small house, a field, and a cow fell to Marouckla. In course of time an honest farmer came to share them with her, and their lives were happy and peaceful.
THE MAIL-COACH PASSENGERS
BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN (ADAPTED)
It was bitterly cold. The sky glittered with stars, and not a breeze stirred. “Bump,”—an old pot was thrown at a neighbor's door; and, “Bang! Bang!” went the guns, for they were greeting the New Year.
It was New Year's Eve, and the church clock was striking twelve. “Tan-ta-ra-ra, tan-ta-ra-ra!” sounded the horn, and the mail-coach came lumbering up. The clumsy vehicle stopped at the gate of the town; all the places had been taken, for there were twelve passengers in the coach.
“Hurrah! Hurrah!” cried the people in the town; for in every house the New Year was being welcomed; and, as the clock struck, they stood up, the full glasses in their hands, to drink success to the newcomer. “A happy New Year,” was the cry; “a pretty wife, plenty of money, and no sorrow or care!”