had one great fault. She was always wishing for the most
unreasonable and impossible things, and though the king was always
trying to get her what she wanted she was never satisfied, and every day
she seemed to grow more and more discontented and exacting. At last, one
day in the winter, a most extraordinary thing happened. A shower of snow
fell in Cordova, which was the name of the town where the king and queen
lived, and it whitened the hills all around the town, so that they
looked as if somebody had been dusting white sugar over them. Now snow
was hardly ever seen in Cordova, and the people in the town wondered at
it, and talked about it a great deal. But after she had looked at it a
little-while the queen began to cry bitterly. None of her ladies could
comfort her, nor would she tell any of them what was the matter. There
she sat at her window, weeping, till the king came to see her. When he
came he could not imagine what she was crying about, and begged her to
tell him why. 'I am weeping,' she said, sobbing all the time, 'because
the hills--are not always--covered with snow. See how pretty they look!
And yet--I have never, till now, seen them look like that. If you really
loved me, you would manage some way or other that it should snow once a
year at any rate.'

"'But how can I make it snow?' cried the king in great trouble, because
she would go on weeping and weeping, and spoiling her pretty eyes.

"'I'm sure I don't know,' said the queen, crossly, 'but you can't love
me a bit, or you'd certainly try.'

"Well, the king thought and thought, and at last he hit upon a beautiful
plan. He sent into all parts of Spain to buy almond trees, and planted
them on the hills all round the town. Now the almond tree, as you know,
has a lovely pinky-white blossom, so when the next spring arrived all
these thousands of almond trees came out into bloom all over the hills
round Cordova, so that they looked at a distance as if they were covered
with white snow. And for once the queen was delighted, and could not
help saying a nice 'Thank you' to the king for all the trouble he had
taken to please her. But it was not very long before she grew
discontented again, and began once more to wish for all kinds of
ridiculous things. One day she was sitting at her window, and she saw
some ragged little children playing by the river that ran round the
palace. They were dabbling in the mud at the side, sticking their little
bare feet into it,