“Alas,” answered she, “thus shone the full moon when I played this air on the flute for the last time, and the head of my beloved rose out of the water.”
He looked at her, and it seemed as if a veil fell from his eyes, and he recognized his dear wife. And when she looked at him, and the moon shone in his face she knew him also. They embraced and kissed each other, and no one need ask if they were happy.
THE LITTLE HOUSE IN THE WOOD
A poor woodcutter lived with his wife and three daughters in a little hut on the edge of a lonely wood. One morning as he was about to go to his work, he said to his wife, “Let my dinner be brought into the wood to me by my eldest daughter, or I shall never get my work done. And in order that she may not miss her way,” he added, “I will take a bag of millet with me and strew the seeds on the path.”
When, therefore, the sun was just above the centre of the wood, the girl set out on her way with a bowl of soup. But the field-sparrows, and wood-sparrows, larks and finches, blackbirds and siskins had picked up the millet long before, and the girl could not find the track. Then trusting to chance, she went on and on, until the sun sank and night began to fall. The trees rustled in the darkness, the owls hooted, and she began to be afraid.
Then in the distance she perceived a light which glimmered between the trees. “There ought to be some people living there, who can take me in for the night,” thought she, and went up to the light. It was not long before she came to a house the windows of which were all lighted up.
She knocked, and a rough voice from the inside cried, “Come in.”