‘Oh yes, we have seen that,’ said both children, and then they knew it was true.

‘Can the Snow Queen come in here?’ asked the little girl.

‘Just let her come,’ said the boy, ’and I will put her on the stove, where she will melt.’

But the grandmother smoothed his hair and told him more stories.

In the evening when little Kay was at home and half undressed, he crept up on to the chair by the window, and peeped out of the little hole.  A few snow-flakes were falling, and one of these, the biggest, remained on the edge of the window-box.  It grew bigger and bigger, till it became the figure of a woman, dressed in the finest white gauze, which appeared to be made of millions of starry flakes.  She was delicately lovely, but all ice, glittering, dazzling ice.  Still she was alive, her eyes shone like two bright stars, but there was no rest or peace in them.  She nodded to the window and waved her hand.  The little boy was frightened and jumped down off the chair, and then he fancied that a big bird flew past the window.

The next day was bright and frosty, and then came the thaw—­and after that the spring.  The sun shone, green buds began to appear, the swallows built their nests, and people began to open their windows.  The little children began to play in their garden on the roof again.  The roses were in splendid bloom that summer; the little girl had learnt a hymn, and there was something in it about roses, and that made her think of her own.  She sang it to the little boy, and then he sang it with her—­

    ’Where roses deck the flowery vale,
    There, Infant Jesus, we thee hail!’

The children took each other by the hands, kissed the roses, and rejoiced in God’s bright sunshine, and spoke to it as if the Child Jesus were there.  What lovely summer days they were, and how delightful it was to sit out under the fresh rose-trees, which seemed never tired of blooming.

Kay and Gerda were looking at a picture book of birds and animals one day—­it had just struck five by the church clock—­when Kay said, ’Oh, something struck my heart, and I have got something in my eye!’

The little girl put her arms round his neck, he blinked his eye; there was nothing to be seen.

‘I believe it is gone,’ he said; but it was not gone.  It was one of those very grains of glass from the mirror, the magic mirror.  You remember that horrid mirror, in which all good and great things reflected in it became small and mean, while the bad things were magnified, and every flaw became very apparent.

Poor Kay! a grain of it had gone straight to his heart, and would soon turn it to a lump of ice.  He did not feel it any more, but it was still there.

‘Why do you cry?’ he asked; ’it makes you look ugly; there’s nothing the matter with me.  How horrid!’ he suddenly cried; ’there’s a worm in that rose, and that one is quite crooked; after all, they are nasty roses, and so are the boxes they are growing in!’ He kicked the box and broke off two of the roses.