Page:Russian Fairy Book (N. H. Dole).djvu/51

Rh mystified the orthodox people and her sisters and her father and her mother. But one last time she started to undress and she forgot to take out of her braided hair a diamond brooch.

The older sisters came from church and began to tell their young sister about the beautiful queen; but when they looked at her they saw the diamond glittering so brilliantly in her braided hair!

"Now, sister, what is that on you?" the girls exclaimed. "Why, just such a brooch the queen wore on her head this day! Where did you get it?"

The beautiful girl groaned in spirit and ran off to her little room. There was no end of questions and conjectures and whisperings, but the youngest sister said not a word, but only smiled a quiet smile.

So now the older sisters began to keep an eye on her; and at night they would listen at the door of her little room, and one time they overheard her talking with Finist the Bright-Hawk, and when dawn came they saw with their own eyes how he flew out of her window and hid behind the dark forest.

These girls, it seems, were wicked—the older sisters. They agreed together to put hidden