from the clouds.

Betushka was worse frightened than before and she closed her eyes
tight. When the maiden repeated her question, Betushka answered
timidly:

"Forgive me, beautiful lady, for not dancing with you. If I dance with
you I cannot spin my stint and then my mother will scold me. Today
before the sun sets I must make up for what I lost yesterday."

"Come, child, and dance," the maiden said. "Before the sun sets we'll
find some way of getting that spinning done!"

She tucked up her skirt, put her arm about Betushka, the musicians in
the treetops struck up, and off they whirled. The maiden danced more
beautifully than ever. Betushka couldn't take her eyes from her. She
forgot her goats, she forgot her spinning. All she wanted to do was to
dance on forever.

At sundown the maiden paused and the music stopped. Then Betushka,
clasping her hands to her head, where the unspun flax was twined,
burst into tears. The beautiful maiden took the flax from her head,
wound it round the stem of a slender birch, grasped the spindle, and
began to spin. The spindle hummed along the ground and filled in no
time. Before the sun sank behind the woods all the flax was spun, even
that which was left over from the day before. The maiden handed
Betushka the full spindle and said:

"Remember my words:

"_Reel and grumble not!
Reel and grumble not!_"

When she said this, she vanished as if the earth had swallowed her.

Betushka was very happy now and she thought to herself on her way
home: "Since she is so good and kind, I'll dance with her again if she
asks me. Oh, how I hope she does!"

She sang her merry little song as usual and the goats trotted
cheerfully along.

She found her mother vexed with her, for she had wanted to reel
yesterday's yarn and had discovered that the spindle was not full.

"What were you doing yesterday," she scolded, "that you didn't spin
your stint?"

Betushka hung her head. "Forgive me, mother. I danced too long." Then
she showed her mother today's spindle and said: "See, today I more
than made up for yesterday."

Her mother said no more but went to milk the goats and Betushka put
away the spindle. She wanted to tell her mother her adventure, but she
thought to herself: "No, I'll wait. If the beautiful lady comes again,
I'll ask her who she is and then I'll tell mother." So she said
nothing.

On the third morning she drove the goats as usual to the birch wood.
The goats went to pas