The wrong
in her was this--that she had led such a bad life, that she did not
know a good woman when she saw her; took her for one like herself,
even after she had slept in her arms.
Immediately the wise woman set her down, and, walking on, within a
few paces vanished among the trees. Then the cries of the princess
rent the air, but the fir-trees never heeded her; not one of their
hard little needles gave a single shiver for all the noise she made.
But there were creatures in the forest who were soon quite as much
interested in her cries as the fir-trees were indifferent to them.
They began to hearken and howl and snuff about, and run hither and
thither, and grin with their white teeth, and light up the green
lamps in their eyes. In a minute or two a whole army of wolves and
hyenas were rushing from all quarters through the pillar like stems
of the fir-trees, to the place where she stood calling them, without
knowing it. The noise she made herself, however, prevented her from
hearing either their howls or the soft pattering of their many
trampling feet as they bounded over the fallen fir needles and
cones.
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