"Beautiful aunt," said Fable, "I am no idler. But I cannot help laughing at your door-keeper. She would have taken me to her breast; but seemed to have eaten too much to rise. Let me sit before the door, and give me something to spin. I cannot see well here; and when I am spinning I must be suffered to sing and talk, which might disturb your serious cogitations."
"Thou shalt not go outside; but through a cleft of the rock a beam from the upper world pierces into a side-chamber, there thou mayest spin if thou knowest how. Here lie great heaps of old ends, spin them together. But have a care; for if thou spin lazily or break the threads, they will wind round and choke thee."
The old woman laughed maliciously and resumed her labor. Fable gathered up an armful of the threads, took distaff and spindle, and tripped singing into the chamber. She looked out through the cleft, and saw the constellation of Phoenix. Rejoicing at the happy omen, she began to spin industriously, leaving the chamber door ajar, and sang in subdued tones:--
Within your cells awaken,
Children of olden time;
Be every bed forsaken,
The morn begins to climb.
Your threadlets I am weaving
Into a single thread:
In one life be ye cleaving,--