nd. And what
strange shapes they took! Some looked like white hedgehogs, some like
polar bears. They were the Snow Queen's soldiers.

Gerda grew frightened. But she did not run away. She folded her hands
and closed her eyes. "Our Father which art in heaven," she began, but
she could get no further. The cold was so great that she could not go
on. She opened her eyes, and there, surrounding her, was a legion of
bright little angels. They had been formed from her breath, as she
prayed, "Our Father which art in heaven." And the bright little angels
shivered into a hundred pieces the snowflake army, and Gerda walked on
fearlessly toward the palace of the Snow Queen.

* * *

Little Kay sits alone in the great ice hall. He does not know that he is
blue with cold, for the Snow Queen has kissed away the icy shiverings
and left his heart with no more feeling than a lump of ice.

And this morning she has flown off to visit the countries of the south,
where the grapes and the lemons grow.

"It is all so blue there," she had said, "I must go and cast my veil of
white across their hills and meadows." And away she flew.

So Kay sits in the great ice hall alone. Chips of ice are his only
playthings, and now he leaves them on the ice-floor and goes to the
window to gaze at the snowdrifts in the palace garden. Great gusts of
wind swirl the snow past the windows. Kay can see nothing. He turns
again to his ice toys.

Outside, little Gerda struggles through the biting wind, then, saying
her morning prayer, she enters the vast hall. At a glance she sees the
lonely boy. In a twinkling she knows it is Kay. Her little bare feet
carry her like wings across the ice floor. Her arms are round his neck.

"Kay, dear, dear Kay!"

But Kay does not move. He is still and cold as the palace walls.

Little Gerda bursts into tears, hot, scalding tears. Her arms are yet
round Kay's neck, and her tears fall upon his heart of ice. They thaw
it. They reach the grain of glass, and it melts away.

And now Kay's tears fall hot and fast, and as they pour, the tiny bit of
glass passes out of his eye, and he sees, he knows, his long-lost
playmate.

"Little Gerda, little Gerda!" he cries, "where have you been, where have
you been, where are we now?" and he shivers as he looks round the vast
cold hall.

But Gerda kisses his white cheeks, and they grow rosy; she kisses his
eyes, and they shine like stars; she kisses his hands and fee