The next morning the girls got up and dressed themselves in their best. They were very happy. They thought to themselves, "Oh, my, what a fine time we shall have!" They got into the sledge with their father and away they went. They soon came to the pine-tree where Marfa had stayed the other night. They got out and sat down. Their father drove away.
The girls began to laugh together. They said, "What a queer idea of mother to send us here for a bridegroom,—as if there were not enough young men in the village." It was bitter cold, and they soon began to get cross and quarrel with each other. One of them said, "Suppose only one bridegroom comes, whom will he take?" "It will be I, of course," was her sister's reply. "Indeed, no," exclaimed the other; "I will be the chosen one." They grew colder and colder, stiffer and stiffer. But they kept quarrelling and calling each other bad names.
Frost was some way off, but the girls now heard him cracking his fingers and snapping the pine-trees. "Listen, some one is coming. I hear sleigh-bells," said the older sister. But the other would not listen. She declared she was too cold.
Frost came nearer and nearer. At last he stood in front of the two girls. He spoke to them just as he had to Marfa before. "Well, my darlings, are you cold?" But the girls only answered with bad words. They called Frost names such as no wise person would dare to speak to this great being. Yet again he called out, "Are you warm, my pretty ones?" And again they answered him with curses. But as they did so they fell dead to the ground.
The next morning the old woman said to her husband, "Come, harness the horse quickly, and go fetch the girls home. There was a terrible frost last night. They must be half-dead with cold." The father did as she bid him, and drove away to the pine-tree. But what did he see? Two lifeless bodies, frozen stiff! He put them in the sledge, covered them over, and carried them home. As he drove up to the cottage, the old woman went out to meet her daughters.
What a sight was there! The girls had indeed met their bridegroom, but it was Death. After this the old woman treated her stepdaughter all the worse for awhile, but she soon got over it. She grew kind and loving. They lived pleasantly ever after.
Marfa married a neighbour who had a good home to give her. She and her children are very happy. But when her children are naughty, their grandfather frightens them by saying, "Look out, or Frost will get you."
Petrovna and Ivan shiver as the story ends, and draw nearer their dear mamma, as though she could protect them from any danger.
The long, cold winter is gone at last. The ice of the river begins to break up. It has been frozen solid for months, but now it is cracking and softening and beginning to move out to the sea. The commander of the fort on the opposite side of the river discovered this last midnight. He did not wait a single moment. He started at once to carry the glad news to the Emperor, while cannon were fired off from the fort.