Outside it was snowing fast.

'Those are the white bees swarming,' said the old grandmother.

'Have they also a queen bee?' asked the little boy, for he knew
that the real bees have one.

'To be sure,' said the grandmother. 'She flies wherever they
swarm the thickest. She is larger than any of them, and never
stays upon the earth, but flies again up into the black clouds.
Often at midnight she flies through the streets, and peeps in at
all the windows, and then they freeze in such pretty patterns and
look like flowers.'

'Yes, we have seen that,' said both children; they knew that it
was true.

'Can the Snow-queen come in here?' asked the little girl.

'Just let her!' cried the boy, 'I would put her on the stove, and
melt her!'

But the grandmother stroked his hair, and told some more stories.

In the evening, when little Kay was going to bed, he jumped on
the chair by the window, and looked through the little hole. A
few snow-flakes were falling outside, and one of the, the
largest, lay on the edge of one of the window-boxes. The
snow-flake grew larger and larger till it took the form of a