spears in their hands. More and more of them appeared, and when Gerda
had finished her prayer she was surrounded by a whole legion. They
pierced the snow-flakes with their spears and shivered them into a
hundred pieces, and little Gerda walked fearlessly and undauntedly
through them. The angels touched her hands and her feet, and then she
hardly felt how cold it was, but walked quickly on towards the Palace of
the Snow Queen.

Now we must see what Kay was about. He was not thinking about Gerda at
all, least of all that she was just outside the Palace.


SEVENTH STORY

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE SNOW QUEEN'S PALACE AND AFTERWARDS

[Illustration: _The Snow Queen sat in the very middle of it when she sat
at home._]

The Palace walls were made of drifted snow, and the windows and doors of
the biting winds. There were over a hundred rooms in it, shaped just as
the snow had drifted. The biggest one stretched for many miles. They
were all lighted by the strongest northern lights. All the rooms were
immensely big and empty, and glittering in their iciness. There was
never any gaiety in them; not even so much as a ball for the little
bears, when the storms might have turned up as the orchestra, and the
polar bears might have walked about on their hind legs and shown off
their grand manners. There was never even a little game-playing party,
for such games as 'touch last' or 'the biter bit'--no, not even a little
gossip over the coffee cups for the white fox misses. Immense, vast,