“Aha, boaster! and what is it you know? Why, nothing at all except to go out to merry-makings and lick your lips there. We’ll soon see which he’ll take first!”
While the girls went on scolding like that, they began to freeze in downright earnest. Suddenly they both cried out at once:
“Whyever is he so long coming. Do you know, you’ve turned quite blue!”
Now, a good way off, Frost had begun cracking, snapping his fingers, and leaping from fir to fir. To the girls it sounded as if some one was coming.
“Listen, Prascovia! He’s coming at last, and with bells, too!”
“Get along with you! I won’t listen; my skin is peeling with cold.”
“And yet you’re still expecting to get married!”
Then they began blowing on their fingers.
Nearer and nearer came Frost. At length he appeared on the pine, above the heads of the girls, and said to them:
“Are ye warm, maidens? Are ye warm, pretty ones? Are ye warm, my darlings?”