"Come! if thou art not afraid, and I shall show thee where I keep my precious treasure of broken hearts." Stretching her hand out to the young man, she clasped his, and he found himself being drawn along across the great white plain, quicker, always quicker--till all was but a mist before his eyes; yet he felt that even if it were to death he was being hurried he could not but follow this wonderful vision of the night. Faster and faster became their pace. Eric hardly knew how he was moving; on both sides of them ran the white bears keeping step with their racing. All of a sudden his beautiful guide stopped. And pointing before her Eric looked ... and there, rising out of the mist, hanging in the air, was a gigantic castle, built out of ice, that glittered and sparkled above the clouds--a marvellous sight, the dream-like vision of another world. The snow-maiden again seized her companion's hand, and now she was leading him up a thousand slippery steps, hewn out of ice, that seemed to wind through the clouds. Eric's breath came in gasps; but still on rushed the fair woman, as with winged feet, till they reached a large space before the palace portals. They stood wide open, and from within streamed forth a blue light that gleamed far out over the smooth snow. "Come," said the snow-maiden, and she put her finger to her lips. Still holding Eric by the hand, she led him through the wide-open doors into a vast hall, made of ice and snow. Great columns supported the domed roof, and the windows that were of transparent ice gave a strange blue light that filled the whole place. The hall was quite empty; the floor was put together out of small pieces of ice forming wonderful patterns that shimmered in different shades of white. In the middle a small descending staircase interrupted the smooth surface--a sort of dark well, the first steps of which shone bluish and ghost-like. A great light came up from somewhere far down in the heart of the earth. The snow-maiden, still tightly clasping Eric's hand, now began to descend the narrow stairs, and the deeper they went the stronger became the light, till they reached a low vaulted chamber of great size and quite round, in the middle of which burnt a blinding circle of light. At first Eric was too bewildered to grasp the meaning of that ring of flame; then he recognized the little tongues of fire that had mocked him out yonder in the wilderness. The snow-maiden had sunk on her knees, and beckoning Eric to come nearer, she raised one of the little fluttering blazes that remained balanced on her hand like a luminous butterfly. Eric stared, his head close to his beautiful companion's, and saw a small hole made in the snow, where lay a tiny red heart which was split right across. "This," whispered the snow-maiden, "is the heart of a poor little child, whose mother abandoned it, and who died of grief. I found it several years ago.