Viola smiled and said, “I first stole barley sugar when my father said ‘This is for the other little girl over the way’; and I first loved you when, seeing you had been too absent-minded to know that Pepper had cast her shoes, I feared you were in love.” “But that was three minutes after we met!” cried the King. “Was it as much as that!” said she. Now after awhile Viola said, “Let us get down to the world again. We cannot stay here for ever.” “Why not?” said the King. However, they walked to the brow of the hill, and stood together gazing awhile over the sunlit earth that had never been so beautiful to either of them; for their sight was newly-washed with love, and all things were changed. “Now I know how she looks from heaven,” said the King, “and that is like heaven itself. Let us go; for I think she will still look so at our coming, seeing that we carry heaven with us.” So they went downhill to the forge, and there Viola said to her lover, “I can stay no longer in this place where all men have known me as a lad; and besides, a woman’s home is where her husband lives.” “But I live only in a Barn,” said William the King. “Then I will live there with you,” said Viola, “and from this very night. But first I will shoe Pepper anew, for she is so unequally shod that she might spill us on the road. And that she may be shod worthily of herself and of us, give me what you have tied up in your blue handkerchief.” The King fetched his handkerchief and unknotted it, and gave her his crown and scepter; and she set him at the bellows and made three golden shoes and shod the nag on her two fore-feet and her off hind-foot. But when she looked at the near hind-foot, which the King had shod last of all, she said: “I could not make a better. And therefore, like his father, the Lad shut his smithy, for he is dead.” Then she put the three shoes she had removed into a bag with some other trifles; and while she did so the King took what remained of the gold and made it into two rings. This done, they got on to Pepper’s back, and with her three shoes of gold and one of iron she bore them the way the King had come. When they passed the Bush Hovel they saw the Wise Woman currying her broomstick, and Viola cried: “Great-Aunt, give us a blessing.” “Great-Niece,” said the Wise Woman, “how can I give you what you already have? But I will give you this.” And she held out a horseshoe. “Good gracious,” said the King, “this was once Pepper’s.” “It was,” said the Wise Woman. “In her merriment at hearing you ask a silly question, she cast it outside my door.” A little further on they came to the Guess Gate, but when the King, dismounting, swung it open, it grated on something in the road. He stooped and lifted--a horseshoe. “Wonder of wonders!” exclaimed the King. “This also was Pepper’s. What shall we do with it?” “Hang--it--up--hang--it--up--hang--” creaked the Gate; and clicked home.