nd snow, and, with her last penny, bought yet another
bunch of candles. To no purpose, for alas, and alack-a-day! when she
laid them down in order to part her beautiful golden hair and to see how
to get over the stile, a big black dog ran away with them.

So nothing was left save to go back to her stepmother in fear and
trembling. But, for a wonder, her stepmother did not seem very angry.
She only scolded her for being so late, for, see you, her father and her
little playmate had gone to their beds and were in the Land of Nod.

Then she said to the child, "I must take the tangles out of your hair
before you go to sleep. Come, put your head on my lap."

So the little girl put her head on her stepmother's lap, and, lo and
behold! her beautiful yellow-silk hair rolled right over the woman's
knees and lay upon the ground.

Then the beauty of it made the stepmother more jealous than before, so
she said, "I cannot part your hair properly on my knee, fetch me a
billet of wood."

So the little girl fetched one. Then said the stepmother, "Your hair is
so thick I cannot part it with a comb; fetch me an axe!"

So the child fetched an axe.

"Now," said that wicked, wicked woman, "lay your head down on the billet
while I part your hair."

And the child did as she was bid without fear; and lo! the beautiful
little golden head was off in a second, by one blow of the axe.

Now the wicked stepmother had thought it all out before, so she took the
poor little dead girl out to the garden, dug a hollow in the snow under
the rose tree, and said to herself, "When spring comes and the snow
melts if people find her bones, they will say she lost her way and fell
asleep in the snow."

But first, because she was a wicked witch-woman, knowing spells and
charms, she took out the heart of the little girl and made it into two
savoury pasties, one for her husband's breakfast and one for the little
boy's, for thus would the love they bore to the little girl become hers.
Nevertheless, she was mistaken, for when morning came and the little
child could not be found, the father sent away his breakfast barely
tasted, and the little boy wept so that he could eat nothing.

So they grieved and grieved. And when the snow melted and they found the
bones of the poor child, they said, "She must have lost her way that
dark night going to the grocer's to buy candles." So they buried the
bones under the children's rose tree, and every day the little boy sa