Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/431

 and you will soon be warm here, and then you shall have some hot mulled wine and a roasted apple, for you are a pretty little boy.”

And this was quite true, for when he entered the house his eyes sparkled “like two bright stars, and as the water dripped from his fair hair it fell into the most beautiful natural curls. He looked, indeed, like a little angel, although he was pale with cold and shivered like an aspen leaf.



In one band he held a splendid bow, but the rich colours of both the bow and arrows had been quite washed away by the wet.

The old poet again seated himself by the stove, on which the sweet mulled wine was being heated, and took the little boy on his knees, squeezed the water from his curls, and held the child’s hands in his own to warm