Once, when they had spent the night in the wood, and the bright sunrise
awoke them, they saw a beautiful child, in a snow-white robe, shining
like diamonds, sitting close to the spot where they had reposed. She
arose when they opened their eyes, and looked kindly at them; but said
no word, and passed from their sight into the wood. 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 keeps watch 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.
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