For an hour past he had been sitting, as became a servant, beyond earshot of the sisters' talk, yet within call, should they summon him.

Now the goddess had descended from her mountain with a command, and he ran toward the woodstack as he would have run and plunged into the water-dyke, had she bidden him.
He returned to find her waiting with her sleeves tucked above her elbows.
"Oh, Johnny--I forgot the tinder-box!" she cried.
He dropped his burdens and produced it triumphantly from his tail pocket.
"I thought of that!" "But you must not!"-- as he dropped on his knees and began to unbind and break up the sticks.

"This is my business.

I am going into service, in ten days--at Kelstein: and you must watch and tell me what I do amiss." She pulled the faggot towards her, broke up the sticks, and built the fragments daintily into a heap, with a handful of dry leaves as basis.

The twilight deepened around them as she built.