ff, Frost was cracking away on a fir. From
fir to fir was he leaping, and snapping his fingers. Presently he
appeared on that very pine under which the maiden was sitting
and from above her head he cried:--

"Art thou warm, maiden?"

"Warm, warm am I, dear Father Frost," she replied.

Frost began to descend lower, all the more cracking and
snapping his fingers. To the maiden said Frost:--

"Art thou warm, maiden? Art thou warm, fair one?"

The girl could scarcely draw her breath, but still she replied:

"Warm am I, Frost dear: warm am I, father dear!"

Frost began cracking more than ever, and more loudly did
he snap his fingers, and to the maiden he said:--

"Art thou warm, maiden? Art thou warm, pretty one?
Art thou warm, my darling?"

The girl was by this time numb with cold, and she could
scarcely make herself heard as she replied:--

"Oh! quite warm, Frost dearest!"

Then Frost took pity on the girl, wrapped her up in furs,
and warmed her with blankets.

Next morning the old woman said to her husband:--

"Drive out, old greybeard, and wake the young couple!"

The old man harnessed his horse and drove off. When he
came to where his daughter was, he found she was alive and had
got a good pelisse, a costly bridal veil, and a pannier with rich
gifts. He stowed everything away on the sledge without saying
a word, took his seat on it with his daughter, and drove back.
They reached home, and the daughter fell at her stepmother's
feet. The old woman was thunderstruck when she saw the girl
alive, and the new pelisse and the basket of linen.

"Ah, you wretch!" she cries. "But you shan't trick me!"

Well, a little later the old woman says to her husband:--

"Take my daughters, too, to their bridegroom. The presents
he's made are nothing to what he'll give them."

Well, early next morning the old woman gave her girls their
breakfast, dressed them as befitted brides, and sent them off on
their journey. In the same way as before the old man left the
girls under the pine.

There the girls sat, and kept laughing and saying:

"Whatever is mother thinking of! All of a sudden to marry
both of us off! As if there were no lads in our village, forsooth!
Some rubbishy fellow may come, and goodness knows who he
may be!"

The girls were wrapped up in pelisses, but for all that they
felt the cold.

"I say, Prascovia! the fr