And many persons advanced from the side apartments, where the magnificent marble figures stood, and approached the grave that hid the great master who had formed the marble figures. All stood with, glorified countenances around Thorwaldsen's grave, and some picked up the shed rose-leaves and carefully guarded them. They had come from far--one from mighty England, others from Germany and France: the most lovely lady gathered one of the roses and hid it in her bosom. Then the sparrows thought that the roses governed here, and that the whole house had been built on account of them. Now, this seemed to them, at all events, too much; however, as it was for the roses that the persons showed all their love, they would remain no longer. "Chirrup!" said they, and swept the floor with their tails, and winked with one eye at the roses. They had not looked at them long before they convinced themselves that they were their old neighbors. And they really were so. The painter who had drawn the rose-bush beside the burned-down house, had afterwards obtained permission to dig it up, and had given it to the architect--for more beautiful roses had never been seen--and the architect had planted it on Thorwaldsen's grave, where it bloomed as a symbol of the beautiful, and gave up its red fragrant leaves to be carried to distant lands as a remembrance. "Have you got an appointment here in town?" asked the sparrows. And the roses nodded: they recognised their brown neighbors, and rejoiced to see them again. "How delightful it is to live and to bloom, to see old friends again, and every day to look on happy faces! It is as if every day were a holy-day." "Chirrup!" said the sparrows. "Yes, it is in truth our old neighbors; their origin--from the pond--is still quite clear in our memory! Chirrup! How they have risen in the world! Yes, Fortune favors some while they sleep! Ah! there is a withered leaf that I see quite plainly." And they pecked at it so long till the leaf fell off; and the tree stood there greener and more fresh, the roses gave forth their fragrance in the sunshine over Thorwaldsen's grave, with whose immortal name, they were united. ------------ THE DARNING-NEEDLE. There was once upon a time a darning needle, that imagined itself so fine, that at last it fancied it was a sewing-needle. "Now, pay attention, and hold me firmly!" said the darning-needle to the fingers that were taking it out. "Do not let me fall! If I fall on the ground, I shall certainly never be found again, so fine am I." "Pretty well as to that," answered the fingers; and so saying, they took hold of it by the body. "Look, I come with a train!" said the darning-needle, drawing a long thread after it, but there was no knot to the thread. The fingers directed the needle against an old pair of shoes belonging to the cook. The upper-leather was torn, and it was now to be sewed together.