little robber-girl looked very solemn and thoughtful. Then she
nodded her head importantly. At last she spoke, not to Gerda, but to the
reindeer.

"I should like to keep you here always, tied by your brass collar to
that wall. Then I should still tickle you with my knife, and have the
fun of seeing you kick and struggle. But never mind. Do you know where
Lapland is?"

Lapland! of course the reindeer knew. Had he not been born there? Had he
not played in its snow-covered fields? As the reindeer thought of his
happy childhood, his eyes danced.

"Would you like to go back to your old home?" asked the robber-girl.

The reindeer leaped into the air for joy.

"Very well, I will soon untie your chain. Mother is still asleep. Come
along, Gerda. Now, I am going to put this little girl on your back, and
you are to carry her safely to the Snow Queen's palace. She must find
her little playfellow." And the robber-girl lifted Gerda up and tied her
on the reindeer's back, having first put a little cushion beneath her.
"I must keep your muff, Gerda, but you can have mother's big, black
mittens. Come, put your hands in. Oh, they do look ugly."

"I am going to Kay, little Kay," and Gerda cried for joy.

"There is nothing to whimper about," said the robber-girl. "Look! here
are two loaves and a ham." Then she opened wide the door, loosened the
reindeer's chain, and said, "Now run."

And the reindeer darted through the open door, Gerda waving her
blackmittened hands, and the little robber-girl calling after the
reindeer, "Take care of my little girl."

On and on they sped, over briers and bushes, through fields and forests
and swamps. The wolves howled and the ravens screamed. But Gerda was
happy. She was going to Kay.

* * *

The loaves and the ham were finished, and Gerda and the reindeer were in
Lapland.

They stopped in front of a little hut. Its roof sloped down almost to
the ground, and the door was so low that to get into the hut one had to
creep on hands and knees. How the reindeer squeezed through I cannot
tell, but there he was in the little hut, telling an old Lapp woman who
was frying fish over a lamp, first his own story and then the sad story
of Gerda and little Kay.

"Oh, you poor creatures," said the Lapp woman, "the Snow Queen is not
in Lapland at present. She is hundreds of miles away at her palace in
Finland. But I will give you a note to a Finn woman, and she will direct
you better