t, and he
is strong and glad.

Hand in hand they wander out of the ice palace. The winds hush, the sun
bursts forth. They talk of their grandmother, of their rose-trees.

The reindeer has come back, and with him there waits another reindeer.
They stand by the bush with the red berries.

The children bound on to their backs, and are carried first to the hut
of the Finn woman, and then on to Lapland. The Lapp woman has new
clothes ready for them, and brings out her sledge. Once more Kay and
Gerda are sitting side by side. The Lapp woman drives, and the two
reindeer follow. On and on they speed through the white-robed land. But
now they leave it behind. The earth wears her mantle of green.

"Good-by," they say to the kind Lapp woman; "good-by" to the gentle
reindeer.

Together the children enter a forest. How strange and how sweet the song
of the birds!

A young girl on horseback comes galloping toward them. She wears a
scarlet cap, and has pistols in her belt. It is the robber-girl.

"So you have found little Kay."

Gerda smiles a radiant smile, and asks for the prince and princess.

"They are traveling far away."

"And the raven?"

"Oh, the raven is dead. But tell me what you have been doing, and where
you found little Kay."

The three children sit down under a fir-tree, and Gerda tells of her
journey through Lapland and Finland, and how at last she had found
little Kay in the palace of the Snow Queen.

"Snip, snap, snorra!" shouts the robber-girl, which is her way of saying
"Hurrah!" Then, promising that if ever she is near their town, she will
pay them a visit, off she gallops into the wide world.

On wander the two children, on and on. At last they see the tall towers
of the old town where they had lived together. Soon they come to the
narrow street they remember so well. They climb the long, long stair,
and burst into the little attic.

The rose-bush is in bloom, and the sun pours in upon the old
grandmother, who reads her Bible by the open window.

Kay and Gerda take their two little stools and sit down one on either
side of her, and listen to the words from the Good Book. As they listen,
a great peace steals into their souls.

And outside it is summer--warm, bright, beautiful summer.

THE MASTER-MAID

Once there was a King who had a son, and this Prince would not stay at
home, but went a long, long way off to a very far country. There he met
a Giant; and though it seems a strange th