"Shall I ever hear you again?" asked Snowflower.
"Yes, if you will give me a reward," said the minstrel.
"What can I give you?" asked Snowflower. "I have no money, and my father and my mother have gone to the farm and they won't be back till late."
"All I want," said the minstrel, "is the little copper coin in the shape of a heart that hangs over your hearth."
"Oh! you may have that with pleasure," said Snowflower, "it is only a brass farthing." And she ran indoors, and fetched it, and gave it to him. "Only now you must sing to me again," she said.
"I promise to sing to you again, but not now," said the minstrel, and he walked away into the darkness.
When Snowflower's father and mother came home, they noticed at once that the little copper coin had gone, and Snowflower told them that she had given it to a wandering minstrel.
Her mother was vexed and cried; but her father said—
"Never mind, never mind, no harm ever came yet of giving alms to the poor."
The years passed by, and Snowflower never once saw the mysterious minstrel again, and she soon forgot all about him. She grew up into a most beautiful maiden; and when she was seventeen, there was no one to compare with her in the whole country. She was dazzling like the snow on the mountains, and soft as the blush that steals over them in the dawn, and her eyes were like the pools that reflect the sky in the hidden places of the hills. So beautiful was she that the fame of her spread far and wide, and the King thought that she would make an excellent wife for his only son, who was just old enough to marry.