When the children looked around they saw they had been sleeping on
the edge of a precipice, and would surely have fallen over if they had
gone forward two steps further in the darkness. Their mother said
the beautiful child must have been the angel who watches over good
children.
Snow-White and Rose-Red kept their mother's cottage so clean that it
gave pleasure only to look in. In summer-time Rose-Red attended to the
house, and every morning, before her mother awoke, placed by her bed
a bouquet which had in it a rose from each of the rose-trees. In
winter-time Snow-White set light to the fire, and put on the kettle,
after polishing it until it was like gold for brightness. In the
evening, when snow was falling, her mother would bid her bolt the
door, and then, sitting by the hearth, the good widow would read aloud
to them from a big book while the little girls were spinning. Close
by them lay a lamb, and a white pigeon, with its head tucked under its
wing, was on a perch behind.
[Illustration]
One evening, as they were all sitting cosily together like this, there
was a knock at the door, as if someone wished to come in.
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