Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/65

Rh she looked just like a girl of seventeen, though she was only a few days old.

"Akem," said Masha, one day to her husband, "how good Providence has been to us; how Snow-Maiden has brightened us, in these few days, and how wicked we were to grumble as we did."

"Yes, Masha," returned Akem, "we ought to thank Providence for all that He has done for us, and thank Him that we have mirth instead of gloom, in our little home."

Winter passed, the heavens rejoiced, the spring sun came out, the swallows began to fly about, and the grass and trees became green once more.

The lovely Russian peasant-girls gathered themselves together, and met their young cavaliers under the trees in the forest, where they danced and sang their pretty Russian songs. But the Snow-Maiden was dull.

"What is the matter with you, my darling?" asked Masha; "are you ill? You are always so bright and cheerful as a rule, and now you are so dull all at once. Has any bad man thrown a spell over you?"

"No, mother mine; nothing is the matter with me, darling," the Snow-Maiden replied, but still she continued to be dull, and by degrees she lost her beautiful colour, and began to droop sadly, greatly to the alarm of those around her.

The last snow had now vanished, the gardens began to bloom, the rivers and lakes rippled, the birds sang merrily; in fact all the wide world seemed happy; yet our little Snow-Maiden drooped and looked sad. E