Outside, little Gerda struggles through the biting wind, then, saying her morning prayer, she enters the vast hall. At a glance she sees the lonely boy. In a twinkling she knows it is Kay. Her little bare feet carry her like wings across the ice floor. Her arms are round his neck. "Kay, dear, dear Kay!" But Kay does not move. He is still and cold as the palace walls. Little Gerda bursts into tears, hot, scalding tears. Her arms are yet round Kay's neck, and her tears fall upon his heart of ice. They thaw it. They reach the grain of glass, and it melts away. And now Kay's tears fall hot and fast, and as they pour, the tiny bit of glass passes out of his eye, and he sees, he knows, his long-lost playmate. "Little Gerda, little Gerda!" he cries, "where have you been, where have you been, where are we now?" and he shivers as he looks round the vast cold hall. But Gerda kisses his white cheeks, and they grow rosy; she kisses his eyes, and they shine like stars; she kisses his hands and feet, and he is strong and glad. Hand in hand they wander out of the ice palace. The winds hush, the sun bursts forth. They talk of their grandmother, of their rose-trees. The reindeer has come back, and with him there waits another reindeer. They stand by the bush with the red berries. The children bound on to their backs, and are carried first to the hut of the Finn woman, and then on to Lapland. The Lapp woman has new clothes ready for them, and brings out her sledge. Once more Kay and Gerda are sitting side by side. The Lapp woman drives, and the two reindeer follow. On and on they speed through the white-robed land. But now they leave it behind. The earth wears her mantle of green. "Good-by," they say to the kind Lapp woman; "good-by" to the gentle reindeer. Together the children enter a forest. How strange and how sweet the song of the birds! A young girl on horseback comes galloping toward them. She wears a scarlet cap, and has pistols in her belt. It is the robber-girl. "So you have found little Kay." Gerda smiles a radiant smile, and asks for the prince and princess. "They are traveling far away." "And the raven?" "Oh, the raven is dead. But tell me what you have been doing, and where you found little Kay." The three children sit down under a fir-tree, and Gerda tells of her journey through Lapland and Finland, and how at last she had found little Kay in the palace of the Snow Queen. "Snip, snap, snorra!" shouts the robber-girl, which is her way of saying "Hurrah!" Then, promising that if ever she is near their town, she will pay them a visit, off she gallops into the wide world. On wander the two children, on and on. At last they see the tall towers of the old town where they had lived together. Soon they come to the narrow street they remember so well. They climb the long, long stair, and burst into the little attic. The rose-bush is in bloom, and the sun pours in upon the old grandmother, who reads her Bible by the open window.