“Where have you been?” cried the stepsisters. “What has happened to you?”
Isabella tried to think what could have brought such a thing about, for she was as much surprised as any of them, but she could not think of anything unusual except the meeting with the old woman.
“Speak!” demanded her stepmother. “Are you trying to hide something from us?”
She Drank Long and Eagerly
Isabella said that she had met a strange old lady at the well, but that she could not remember anything else that had not happened every time she had gone for water.
Every once in a while as she was speaking diamonds and roses fell from her mouth.
“You need not go for the water the next time,” said her stepmother. “I shall send my own girls.”
The next day the two stepsisters went to fetch the water.