oy, 'I would put her on the stove, and melt
her!'

But the grandmother stroked his hair, and told some more stories.

In the evening, when little Kay was going to bed, he jumped on the chair
by the window, and looked through the little hole. A few snow-flakes
were falling outside, and one of the, the largest, lay on the edge of
one of the window-boxes. The snow-flake grew larger and larger till it
took the form of a maiden, dressed in finest white gauze.

She was so beautiful and dainty, but all of ice, hard bright ice.

Still she was alive; her eyes glittered like two clear stars, but there
was no rest or peace in them. She nodded at the window, and beckoned
with her hand. The little boy was frightened, and sprang down from the
chair. It seemed as if a great white bird had flown past the window.

The next day there was a harder frost than before.

Then came the spring, then the summer, when the roses grew and smelt
more beautifully than ever.

Kay and Gerda were looking at one of their picture-books--the clock in
the great church-tower had just struck five, when Kay exclaimed, 'Oh!
something has stung my heart, and I've got something in my eye!'

The little girl threw her arms round his neck; he winked hard with both
his eyes; no, she could see nothing in them.

'I think it is gone now,' said he; but it had not gone. It was one of
the tiny splinters of the glass of the magic mirror which we have heard
about, that turned everything great and good reflected in it small and
ugly. And poor Kay had also a splinter in his heart, and it began to
change into a lump of ice. It did not hurt him at all, but the splinter
was there all the same.

'Why are you crying?' he asked; 'it makes you look so ugly! There's
nothing the matter with me. Just look! that rose is all slug-eaten, and
this one is stunted! What ugly roses they are!'

And he began to pull them to pieces.

'Kay, what are you doing?' cried the little girl.

And when he saw how frightened she was, he pulled off another rose, and
ran in at his window away from dear little Gerda.

When she came later on with the picture book, he said that it was only
fit for babies, and when his grandmother told them stories, he was
always interrupting with, 'But--' and then he would get behind her and
put on her spectacles, and speak just as she did. This he did very well,
and everybody laughed. Very soon he could imitate the way all the people
in the street walked and tal