Outside each window the parents had placed a large wooden box in which they grew vegetables for their own use, and a little rose-tree, one in each box, which thrived well. The parents had now placed the boxes right across the gutter, so that they almost reached from one window to the other and looked exactly like two flower beds. The creepers of the sweet-pea hung down over the sides of the boxes, and the rose-trees shot long branches which twined themselves around the windows while others clustered together; it was almost like a triumphal arch of flowers and leaves. As the boxes were very high and the children knew that they must not climb up there, they were often allowed to step outside and sit on their small footstools under the rose-trees, and there they could play splendidly.
In the winter-time these pleasant hours came to an end. The windows were often frozen all over, but then they heated copper pennies on the stove and placed the warm coin against the frozen pane, and thus got a splendid peephole, so round, so round; and then from behind would peep a bright gentle eye, one from each window, they were those of the little boy and the little girl. He was called Kay, and she, Gerda. In the summer-time they could get to each other with one jump; in the winter they had first to go down many stairs and then up many stairs, while the snow was falling outside.
"It's the white bees that are swarming!" said the old grandmother.
"Have they also a queen-bee?" asked the little boy, for he knew that there was such a thing among the real bees.
"That they have!" said the grandmother; "she is generally where the swarm is thickest. She is the largest of them all and never settles on the ground, but flies up to the black clouds again. Many a winter night does she fly through the streets of the town looking in through the windows, and the frost on the panes then becomes most wonderful, and looks like flowers."
"Yes, I have seen that!" said both the children, and then they knew it was true.
"Can the Snow Queen come in here?" asked the little girl.
"Let her only come," said the boy, "I'll put her on the warm stove and then she'll melt."
But the grandmother smoothed his hair and told him some other stories.
In the evening when little Kay was at home and half-undressed, he climbed up on the chairs by the window and looked out through the little hole; he could see the snowflakes falling outside, and one of them, the largest of all, settled on the edge of one of the flower-boxes. The snowflake grew larger and larger till at last it became a full-grown woman, dressed in the most delicate white gauze; it looked as if it was composed of millions of star-like flakes. She was very beautiful and graceful, but she
