"Having gathered strength again, she lit a candle, covered a very small table, and brought out supper. She now looked round for me, and bade me take a little cane-chair. I was thus sitting close fronting her, with the light between us. She folded her bony hands, and prayed aloud, still twisting her countenance, so that I was once more on the point of laughing; but I took strict care that I might not make her angry.
"After supper she again prayed, then showed me a bed in a low narrow closet; she herself slept in the room. I did not watch long, for I was half stupefied; but in the night I now and then awoke, and heard the old woman coughing, and between whiles talking with her dog and her bird, which last seemed dreaming, and replied with only one or two words of its rhyme. This, with the birches rustling before the window, and the song of a distant nightingale, made such a wondrous combination, that I never fairly thought I was awake, but only falling out of one dream into another still stranger.
"The old woman awoke me in the morning, and soon after gave me work. I was put to spin, which I now learned very easily; I had likewise to take charge of the dog and the bird. I soon learned my business in the house: I now felt as if it all must be so; I never once remembered that the old woman had so many singularities, that her dwelling was mysterious, and lay apart from all men, and that the bird must be a very strange creature. Its beauty, indeed, always struck me, for its feathers glittered with all possible colours; the fairest deep blue, and the most burning red, alternated about his neck and body; and when singing, he blew himself proudly out, so that his feathers looked still finer.
"My old mistress often went abroad, and did not come again till night; on these occasions I went out to meet her with the dog, and she used to call me child and daughter. In the end I grew to like her heartily; as our mind, especially in childhood, will become accustomed and attached to anything. In the evenings, she taught me to read; and this was afterwards a source of boundless satisfaction to me in my solitude, for she had several ancient-written books, that contained the strangest stories.