herself with her
spindle until a great red drop of her heart's blood fell into her
trembling hand. With witchery of words she blew upon it, and rolled it
in her palm, and muttering, turned and turned and turned it. And as the
spell was laid upon it, it shrivelled it into a tiny round ball like a
seed, and she strung it on to a thread where were many others like it.
Seventy times seven was the number of beads on this strange rosary.
Then she laid it away until the time when it should be needed.

"When the night of the first ball rolled around, Olga combed her long
golden hair and twined it with a wreath of snowy water-lilies, and then
she stood before the old dame in her dress of tow. To her wonderment and
grief she saw the old flax-spinner had no silken robe in waiting, only a
string of beads which she clasped around Olga's white throat. Each bead
in the necklace looked like a little shrivelled seed, and Olga's eyes
were filled with tears of disappointment.

"'Obey me and all will be well,' said the old dame. 'When thou reachest
the castle gate clasp one bead in thy fingers and say:

"'"For love's sweet sake, in my hour of need,
Blossom and deck me, little seed."

"'Straightway, right royally shalt thou be clad. Thou hast been a good
daughter to me, and thus I reward thee. But remember carefully the
charm. Only to the magic words, "For love's sweet sake," will the
necklace give up its treasures. If thou shouldst forget, then must thou
be doomed alway to bear thy gown of tow.'

"So Olga sped on her moon-lighted way through the forest until she came
to the castle gate. There she paused, and grasping a bead of the strange
necklace between her fingers, repeated the old dame's charm:

"'For love's sweet sake, in my hour of need,
Blossom and deck me, little seed.'

"Immediately the bead burst with a little puff, as if a seed pod had
snapped asunder. A faint perfume surrounded her, rare and subtle as if
it had been blown across from some flower of Eden. Olga looked down and
found herself enveloped in a robe of such delicate texture that it
seemed soft as a rose leaf, and as airy as the pink clouds that
sometimes float across the sunset. The water-lilies in her hair had
become a coronal of opals.

"When she entered the great ballroom, the prince of the castle started
up from his throne in amazement. Never before had he seen such a vision
of loveliness. 'Surely,' said he, 'some rose of Paradise