"Does dwarfs know about prayers?" she said, drowsily. "Do you know about them?"
The man's eyes looked dark again. "Not much," he said; "but I know enough to hear yours, Snow-white. Will you say it on my knee here?"
But the child slipped down to the floor, and dropped her head on his knee in a business-like way.
"'Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.'
"I don't say the rest, 'cause I don't like it. And God bless papa and mamma, and make me a goo'—l'—girl—amen. And God bless this dwarf," she added. "That's all." Then she lifted her head, and looked at the dwarf; and something in her look, flushed as she was with sleep, the light in her eyes half veiled, made the man start and flinch, and turn very pale.
"No!" he said, putting out his hands as if to push the child away. "No; leave me alone!"
The child opened her eyes a little wider, and looked at him. "What is the matter of you, dwarf?" she said. "I wasn't touching you. Are you cross?"
"No," said the man; and he smiled again. "Snow-white, if I don't put you to bed, you'll be going to sleep on my best floor, and I can't have that."
He laid her in the little bed, and tucked the bed-clothes round her smoothly; she was asleep almost before her head touched the pillow. The man stood looking at her a long time. Presently he took up one of her curls and examined it, holding it up to the fading light. It was a pretty curl, fine and soft, and of a peculiar shade of reddish brown. He went to a box and took out a folded paper. Unfolding this, took out another curl of hair, and laid it beside the child's; they might have grown on the same head.