The glass

The queen was the most beautiful woman in the land, and she knew it, because she kept a looking-glass that told her so. Every morning she went before it and asked:

“Looking-glass, looking-glass, there on the wall, who is the fairest woman in all the land?”

And every morning the glass gave the same polite answer: “You, royal Grace, are the fairest woman in the land.”

Snow Drop grew. On the first morning of March, when she was seven years old, the queen asked as she always asked, and the glass answered otherwise:

“Royal Grace, you are the fairest here. But Snow Drop is a thousand times fairer than you.”

The queen went white. From that hour she could not look at her daughter without her heart turning over inside her, and envy gave her no rest.

That same morning she sent for her huntsman, and told him to take the child walking in the forest, and what he was to do there, and what he was to bring back so that she would know it was done. Then she told the child that the air would improve her colour, and did not look at her while she said it, and went back to ask the glass again.

Down the passage, at the ebony window, Snow Drop was drawing a door in the mist of her own breath.