The roses did not nod their heads at Laura, for she was as ugly and wicked as Clare was lovely. Her face wore always a heavy frown, which her mother’s reflected; for Laura was her favorite child, and she could not bear to see that her second daughter, for whom she had no spark of love, should be so much the more attractive of the two.
Dame Nature had been very kind to the little Clare. The roses had given their delicate coloring to her soft cheeks, and her pretty eyes were just the hue of a purple pansy. The red of the crimson berries that glinted among the evergreens when winter came was not more vivid than that of her lips, and her hair had the sheen of yellow corn when the sun is smiling on it. Laura could not look at her without a pang of envy, and longed to drive her away from home.
One bitter day in winter, when a waste of snow surrounded the cottage, and frozen icicles hung from the roof, Laura asked her mother if Clare might pick some violets in the woods for her.
“‘Violets?’” exclaimed the mother, “at this time of the year? Why, you must be dreaming, child! There is not a single flower in all the forest!”
But Laura insisted that Clare should be sent to seek for the flowers, and, loath to refuse her anything, her mother did as she was asked.
“Do not come back without them, or it will be the worse for you,” Laura called from the doorway, as she watched her little sister go shiveringly down the pathway that led to the forest. In its depths, she knew, there lurked gaunt gray wolves, and these were fierce with hunger.
Clare knew this too, and her heart was faint with fear as she passed through the grove of fir-trees. A cheery little robin hopped down from one of the branches, and sang a few bars of his winter song as if to comfort her; she had gone but a few paces further when she saw the red of his breast repeated in a glimmer of ruddy light in the distance. She hastened towards it, and found it came from a huge fire, round which were sitting twelve strange men. The faces of all were kindly, but while three had long white beards and snowy garments, three had golden beards and long green garments, three had auburn beards and yellow garments, and yet another triplet, with long black beards, were dressed in violet. One of the three whose hair was frosted looked up as she approached.
“May I warm myself at the fire, kind sir?” she asked him timidly, and making room for her at once, he asked her why she wandered in the forest in such bitter weather.
“I was sent to pluck violets for my sister,” Clare explained, “and I dare not go home without them, or she would be very angry.”
At this her questioner turned to one of the three men who were robed in purple.