eetheart.

She smiled, and "Come!" says she, and took him away to a palace of her
own, and showed him a coffer; and in that coffer were bracelets and
rings and earrings--all the gifts that he had thrown into the river.

And Sadko laughed for joy, and kissed the youngest daughter of the
Tzar of the Sea, and she kissed him back.

"O my little river!" says he; "there is no girl in all the world but
thou as pretty as my little river."

Well, they were married, and the Tzar of the Sea laughed at the
wedding feast till the palace shook and the fish swam off in all
directions.

And after the feast Sadko and his bride went off together to her
palace. And before they slept she kissed him very tenderly, and she
said,--

"O Sadko, you will not forget me? You will play to me sometimes, and
sing?"

"I shall never lose sight of you, my pretty one," says he; "and as for
music, I will sing and play all the day long."

"That's as may be," says she, and they fell asleep.

And in the middle of the night Sadko happened to turn in bed, and he
touched the Princess with his left foot, and she was cold, cold, cold
as ice in January. And with that touch of cold he woke, and he was
lying under the walls of Novgorod, with his dulcimer in his hand, and
one of his feet was in the little river Volkhov, and the moon was
shining.

"O grandfather! And what happened to him after that?" asked Maroosia.

"There are many tales," said old Peter. "Some say he went into the
town, and lived on alone until he died. But I think with those who say
that he took his dulcimer and swam out into the middle of the river,
and sank under water again, looking for his little Princess. They say
he found her, and lives still in the green palaces of the bottom of
the sea; and when there is a big storm, you may know that Sadko is
playing on his dulcimer and singing, and that the Tzar of the Sea is
dancing his tremendous dance down there, on the bottom, under the
waves."

"Yes, I expect that's what happened," said Ivan. "He'd have found it
very dull in Novgorod, even though it is a big town."

FROST.

The children, in their little sheepskin coats and high felt boots and
fur hats, trudged along the forest path in the snow. Vanya went first,
then Maroosia, and then old Peter. The ground was white and the snow
was hard and crisp, and all over the forest could be heard the
crackling of the frost. And as they walked, old Peter told them the
story of the o