"Ah, for my sake, the dear God should not have done that, for my sake!" said Ernestine, bursting into tears. "Now I have no father any more; I have nobody; I am all alone in the world! My poor father! it is all my fault that he is put into the narrow grave, where the worms will eat him and there will be nothing left of him but bones. Oh, how horrible! how horrible! I saw a skeleton once in a picture, and my poor, poor father will look just like that!" And she wrung her thin hands and writhed about in the bed, moaning loudly. Angelika was in despair at the mischief she had done. She had quite forgotten that she had been forbidden, if Ernestine should awake, to speak to her of her father. In the greatest distress she walked to and fro beside the high bed, and at last brought a tall stool, from which, when she had mounted it, she could reach Ernestine. She kissed her, she stroked her cheeks, and laid her chubby hand upon her mouth to silence her, but in vain. At last she hit upon the idea of showing her the book that lay beside her. She opened it at a picture and held it up before her, saying, "Look, dear Ernestine, only look at your beautiful book!" The sick child instantly brushed the tears from her eyes when she saw the picture. "The swan!" she cried, "the swan! that is the story of the Ugly Duckling!" She hastily took the book out of Angelika's hands and turned over the leaves. Gradually the fairy figures of the snow-queen, the little mermaid, and the rest, obliterated the horrible image of her dead father, and his narrow grave faded away to give place to the shining garden of Paradise, and the clear, broad sea with the fairy palaces beneath its crystal waves. Her sobs grew fainter and fainter, and at last a smile played around her lips when she came to the story of the dryad "Elder Blossom." "Now I know what a dryad is," she said. "I am glad, I am very glad!" "What is it that makes you so glad?" "That a dryad is nothing bad, for--don't you know?--_he_ called me that. I thought it was to mock me, and it hurt me, but it was not so." "He? who?" "I don't know his name, your brother, who gave me the book." "Johannes?" laughed Angelika. "Do you like him?" "Yes, oh, yes, he is so handsome and good, just like the prince in the Little Mermaid." With these words a light shone in the child's dark eyes. "I would far rather have turned into foam than done anything to hurt him, if I had been the mermaid." "That is charming! that is splendid!" Angelika declared with delight; "we both love him! He is such a dear brother. It is a pity he has gone away. If he were at home he would come and play with you; oh, he plays so finely!" "Has he gone away?" asked Ernestine sadly. "Yes, he has gone to Paris to get me a wax doll; only think!--one that can call 'Papa' and 'Mamma.'" "Oh, there cannot be such dolls!" said Ernestine with a troubled look.