Even yet the princess would have answered “No;” but when she saw her children standing in the midst of the fire with her, her heart melted away within her.
“Yes!” she cried, “I went in and I saw.”
“And how came your hair to be like that?” said Mother Hildegarde.
“Alas!” said the princess, “I gazed upon that which I should not have gazed upon, and looked into that which I should not have looked into, and one hair touched the water and all was turned to gold.”
Then Mother Hildegarde smiled till her face shone as white as the moon. “The truth is better late than not at all,” said she; “and if you had but spoken in the first place, I would have freely forgiven you.” As she spoke a shower of rain fell down from the sky, and the fire of the fagots was quenched.
And now you can guess what joy there was in the king’s castle when every one knew all that had happened, and it was seen how the right thing had come about at last, though it was the toss of a farthing betwixt this and that. Even the king’s mother was glad enough when she came to know that it was a real princess whom her son had married after all.
And now listen to what happened in the end.
They gave a great feast, and everybody was asked to come from far and near. Then who should come travelling along with the others, as grand as you please, but the wicked step-mother and step-sister of the princess.
Dear, dear, how they stared and goggled when they saw who the young queen really was, and that the poor princess had married the richest and greatest king in all of the land!
Their hearts were so filled with envy that they swelled and swelled until they burst within them, and they fell down dead, and there was an end of them.