“At least I shall not have to draw any water,” said the girl. Then she sat down in the shade and began to eat the cream cakes. She was munching and munching when she saw a tall and beautiful lady coming toward her through the forest. The stranger was as tall and stately as a queen, and was magnificently dressed, and, like a queen, she wore a golden crown upon her head. She was really a powerful fairy, and it was she who, in the shape of an old woman, had talked with her younger sister beside the fountain. She had now resumed her own shape, and the lazy one never guessed that this bright stranger and the old woman she had come to seek, were one and the same.
The fairy came near, and looked down at the girl with a frown, for the lazy one neither moved nor spoke, but only stared up at her with her mouth full of cream cake.
“I see you have a pitcher,” said the fairy, “and as I am very thirsty, will you not draw some water in it for me to drink?”
The lazy girl took time to swallow the last piece of cream cake, and then she answered rudely, “I am not your servant. If you want water, draw it for yourself.”
Then as it seemed there was no chance of the old woman’s returning, she rose and shook the crumbs from her skirt and prepared to go.
“Wait!” said the fairy sharply as she was turning away. “The words that fall from your lips are like evil things, and as evil things shall they appear. For every word you utter a spider or adder shall fall from your lips until you have learned to speak in a proper and gentle manner.”
Having so spoken, the fairy vanished, floating away through the forest like a rosy cloud. The girl shrugged her shoulders and started homeward with her empty pitcher.
Even before she reached the house, the mother came running to meet her and embraced her tenderly. “Did you see the old woman? And did she lay her spell upon you? Speak, my beautiful one, and let me gather up the treasures that fall from your lips.”