Then the fairy said: "Oh, you discontented little old woman! The more I give you, the more you want. Go back to your vinegar-bottle." So the little old woman went home, and she found everything gone--her cart, and her pony, and her maid, and her clothes, and her furniture, and her house. Nothing remained but the little old vinegar-bottle, with the ladder to get up the side. THE SNOW QUEEN Once upon a time there was a little boy called Kay. And there was a little girl. Her name was Gerda. They were not brother and sister, this little boy and girl, but they lived in tiny attics next door to one another. When they were not playing together, Gerda spent her time peeping at Kay, through one of the little panes in her window. And Kay peeped back at Gerda. Outside each attic was a tiny balcony, just big enough to hold two little stools and a window-box. Often Gerda would step out of her attic window into the balcony, carrying with her a three-legged wooden stool. Then she would climb over the low wall that separated her from Kay. And there in Kay's balcony the two children would sit and play together, or tell fairy tales, or tend the flowers that bloomed so gaily in the window-box. At other times it was Kay who would bound over the low wall into Gerda's balcony, and there, too, the little boy and girl were as happy as though they had been in Fairyland. In each little window-box grew a rose-bush, and the bloom and the scent of the red roses they bore gave Kay and Gerda more delight than you can imagine; and all her life long a red rose remained little Gerda's favorite flower. But it was not always summer-time, and when cold, frosty winter came, and the Snow Queen sailed down on the large white snowflakes from a gray sky, then no flowers bloomed in the window-boxes. And the balcony was so slippery that the children dared not venture to step out of their attic windows, but had to run down one long flight of stairs and up another to be able to play together. Sometimes, though, Kay stayed in his own little room and Gerda stayed in hers, gazing and gazing at the lovely pictures of castles, and mountains, and sea, and flowers that the Snow Queen had drawn on the window-panes as she passed. But now that the little panes of glass were covered with pictures, how could Kay and Gerda peep at each other from the attic windows? Ah, they had a plan, and a very good plan, too. Kay would heat a penny on the stove, and then press it against the window-pane, and so make little round peep-holes. Then he would put his eye to one of these little rounds and--what did he see? A bright black eye peeping from Gerda's attic, for she, too, had heated a penny and made peep-holes in her window. It was in winter, too, when the children could not play together on the balcony, that Gerda's grandmother told them stories of the Snow Queen.