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Little Snow White It was in the middle of winter, when the broad flakes of snow
were falling around, that a certain queen sat working at her
window, the frame of which was made of fine black ebony; and, as
she was looking out upon the snow, she pricked her finger, and
three drops of blood fell upon it. Then she gazed thoughtfully down
on the red drops which sprinkled the white snow and said, "Would
that my little daughter may be as white as that snow, as red as the
blood, and as black as the ebony window-frame!" And so the little
girl grew up; her skin was a white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as
blood, and her hair as black as ebony; and she was called
Snow-White. But this queen died; and the king soon married another wife, who
was very beautiful, but so proud that she could not bear to think
that any one could surpass her. She had a magical looking-glass, to
which she used to go and gaze upon herself in it, and
say—
"Tell me, glass, tell me true! Of all the ladies in the land,
Who is fairest? tell me who?"
And the glass answered, "Thou, Queen, art fairest in the
land" Snow White Continued
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