This page has been validated.
202
Europa's Fairy Book

skin as white as snow and cheeks as red as blood. So they called her Snowwhite.

But before Snowwhite had grown up, her mother, the Queen, died and her father married again, a most beautiful princess who was very vain of her beauty and jealous of all women who might be thought as beautiful as she was. And every morning she used to stand before her mirror and say:


"Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?"


And the mirror always used to reply:


"Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
The greatest beauty is thine own."


But Snowwhite grew fairer and fairer every year, till at last one day when the Queen in the morning spoke to her mirror and said:


"Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?"


the mirror replied:


"Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own."


Then the Queen grew terribly jealous of Snowwhite and thought and thought how she could get rid of her, till at last she went to a hunter and