en, and holding fast the one bead in her
hand, she repeated humbly:

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

Lo, as the words left her lips, the moon shone out from behind the
clouds above the dark forest. There was a fragrance of lilies all
about, and a gossamer gown floated around her, whiter than the whiteness
of the fairest lily. It was fine like the finest lace the frost-elves
weave, and softer than the softest ermine of the snow. On her long
golden hair gleamed a coronet of pearls.

So beautiful, so dazzling was she as she entered the castle door, that
the Prince came down to meet her, and kneeling, kissed her hand and
claimed her as his bride. Then came the bishop in his mitre, and led her
to the throne, and before them all the Flax-spinner's maiden was married
to the Prince, and made the Princess Olga.

Then until the seven days and seven nights were done, the revels lasted
in the castle. And in the merriment the old Flax-spinner was again
forgotten. Her kindness of the past, her loneliness in the present had
no part in the thoughts of the Princess Olga.

All night the old Oak, tapping on the thatch, called down, "Thou'rt
forgotten! Thou'rt forgotten!"

But the beads that had rolled away in the darkness, buried themselves in
the earth, and took root, and sprang up, as the old woman knew they
would do. There at the castle gate they bloomed, a strange, strange
flower, for on every stem hung a row of little bleeding hearts.

One day the Princess Olga, seeing them from her window, went down to
them in wonderment.

"What do you here?" she cried, for in her forest life she'd learned all
speech of bird and beast and plant.

"We bloom for love's sweet sake," they answered. "We have sprung from
the old Flax-spinner's gift--the necklace thou didst break and scatter.
From her heart's best blood she gave it, and her heart still bleeds to
think she is forgotten."

Then they began to tell the story of the old dame's sacrifices, all the
seventy times seven that she had made for the sake of the maiden, and
Olga grieved as she listened, that she could have been so ungrateful.
Then she brought the Prince to hear the story of the strange, strange
flowers, and when he had heard, together they went to the lowly cottage
and fetched the old Flax-spinner to the castle, there to live out all
her days in ease and contentment.

"See now," she whispered to the Oak at parting,