till it
formed itself into bright little angels, who grew bigger and bigger when
they touched the ground. They all wore helmets, and carried shields and
spears in their hands. More and more of them appeared, and when Gerda
had finished her prayer she was surrounded by a whole legion. They
pierced the snow-flakes with their spears and shivered them into a
hundred pieces, and little Gerda walked fearlessly and undauntedly
through them. The angels touched her hands and her feet, and then she
hardly felt how cold it was, but walked quickly on towards the Palace of
the Snow Queen.

Now we must see what Kay was about. He was not thinking about Gerda at
all, least of all that she was just outside the Palace.

SEVENTH STORY

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE SNOW QUEEN'S PALACE AND AFTERWARDS

[Illustration: _The Snow Queen sat in the very middle of it when she sat
at home._]

The Palace walls were made of drifted snow, and the windows and doors of
the biting winds. There were over a hundred rooms in it, shaped just as
the snow had drifted. The biggest one stretched for many miles. They
were all lighted by the strongest northern lights. All the rooms were
immensely big and empty, and glittering in their iciness. There was
never any gaiety in them; not even so much as a ball for the little
bears, when the storms might have turned up as the orchestra, and the
polar bears might have walked about on their hind legs and shown off
their grand manners. There was never even a little game-playing party,
for such games as 'touch last' or 'the biter bit'--no, not even a little
gossip over the coffee cups for the white fox misses. Immense, vast,
and cold were the Snow Queen's halls. The northern lights came and went
with such regularity that you could count the seconds between their
coming and going. In the midst of these never-ending snow-halls was a
frozen lake. It was broken up on the surface into a thousand bits, but
each piece was so exactly like the others that the whole formed a
perfect work of art. The Snow Queen sat in the very middle of it when
she sat at home. She then said that she was sitting on 'The Mirror of
Reason,' and that it was the best and only one in the world.

Little Kay was blue with cold, nay, almost black; but he did not know
it, for the Snow Queen had kissed away the icy shiverings, and his heart
was little better than a lump of ice. He went about dragging some sharp,
flat pieces of ice, which he placed in all sort