heir father's
neck. The man had not passed a happy hour since he left them in the
wood, but the woman had died. Grettel shook out her apron so that the
pearls and precious stones rolled about the room, and Hansel threw down
one handful after the other out of his pocket. Thus all their troubles
were ended, and they lived happily ever afterward.

My story is done. See! there runs a little mouse; anyone who catches it
may make himself a large fur cap out of it.(1)

(1) Grimm.

SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED

A poor widow once lived in a little cottage with a garden in front of
it, in which grew two rose trees, one bearing white roses and the other
red. She had two children, who were just like the two rose trees; one
was called Snow-white and the other Rose-red, and they were the sweetest
and best children in the world, always diligent and always cheerful; but
Snow-white was quieter and more gentle than Rose-red. Rose-red loved
to run about the fields and meadows, and to pick flowers and catch
butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home with her mother and helped her
in the household, or read aloud to her when there was no work to do. The
two children loved each other so dearly that they always walked about
hand in hand whenever they went out together, and when Snow-white said,
"We will never desert each other," Rose-red answered: "No, not as long
as we live"; and the mother added: "Whatever one gets she shall share
with the other." They often roamed about in the woods gathering berries
and no beast offered to hurt them; on the contrary, they came up to them
in the most confiding manner; the little hare would eat a cabbage leaf
from their hands, the deer grazed beside them, the stag would bound past
them merrily, and the birds remained on the branches and sang to them
with all their might.

No evil ever befell them; if they tarried late in the wood and night
overtook them, they lay down together on the moss and slept till
morning, and their mother knew they were quite safe, and never felt
anxious about them. Once, when they had slept all night in the wood and
had been wakened by the morning sun, they perceived a beautiful child
in a shining white robe sitting close to their resting-place. The figure
got up, looked at them kindly, but said nothing, and vanished into the
wood. And when they looked round about them they became aware that they
had slept quite close to a precipice, over which they would certainly
have falle