THE SNOW QUEEN. | 279

stopped to look at the tall yellow flower, and asked, “Do you,
perhaps, know anything of little Kay?”

And she bent quite down to the flower, and what did it say?

“Tcanseemyself! Ican see myself!” said the Jonquil. “Oh!
oh! how I smell! Up in the little room in the gable stands a
little dancing girl: she stands sometimes on one foot, sometimes
on both; she seems to tread on all the world. She’s nothing but
an ocular delusion: she pours water out of a tea-pot on a bit of
stuff—it is her boddice. ‘Cleanliness is a fine thing,’ she says ;
her white frock hangs on a hook; it has been washed in the
tea-pot too, and dried on the roof: she puts it on and ties her
saffron handkerchief round her neck, and the dress looks all the
whiter. Point your toes! look how she seems to stand on a
stalk. I can see myself! I can see myself!” :

“J don’t care at all about that,” said Gerda. “ You need not
tell me that.”

And then she ran to the end of the garden. The door was
locked, but she pressed against the rusty lock, and it broke off,
the door sprang open, and little Gerda ran with naked feet out
into the wide world. She looked back three times, but no one
was there to pursue her; at last she could run no longer, and
seated herself on a great stone, and when she looked round the
summer was over—it was late in autumn: one could not notice
that in the beautiful garden, where there was always sunshine,
and the flowers of every season always bloomed.

“ Alas! how I have loitered !” said little Gerda, ‘ Autumn has
come. I may not rest again.”

And she rose up to goon. Oh! how sore and tired her little
feet were. All around it looked cold and bleak; the long willow
leaves were quite yellow, and the dew fell down like water; one
leaf after another dropped; only the sloe-thorn still bore fruit,
but the sloes were sour, and set the teeth on edge. Oh! how
grey and gloomy it looked, the wide world!

THE FOURTH STORY.
The Prince and Princess.

Gerda was compelled to rest again; then there came hopping
across the snow, just opposite the spot where she was sitting, a
great Crow. This Crow stopped a long time to look at her,
nodding its head—now it said, “ Krah! krah! Good day! good
day!” It could not pronounce better, but it felt friendly towards
the little girl, and asked where she was going all alone in the wide
world. The word “alone” Gerda understood very well, and felt
how much it expressed; and she told the Crow the story of her
whole life and fortunes, and asked if it had not seen Kay.

And the Crow nodded very gravely, and said,