“What is there to wish for now that my parents are dead?” he asked himself as he listlessly turned the little hold-all in his fingers, “now that Pea-Blossom has been married six years?—for it was on the day I saw her that she came of age, and then the princesses of her house are married. Besides, she had already made her choice. What does the whole world matter—my world which was made up of no more than a cabin, a bean field—which you, little green pea,” and he untied the last of the caskets from its case, “will never bring back to me. The sweet days of boyhood return no more! “Go, little green pea, go whither the will of God may carry you, and bring forth what you are destined to bring, to the glory of your mistress. All is over and done with—my old parents, the cabin, the bean field and Pea-Blossom. Go, little green pea, far and far away.” He flung it from him with such force that it might have overtaken the magic carriage had it been of that mind; then he sank down on the sand, hopeless and full of sorrow. [Illustration: [Boy]] [Illustration: [Boy]] When Luck of the Bean-rows raised himself up again the entire appearance of the plain was changed. Right away to the horizon it was a sea of dusky or of sunny green, over which the wind rolled tossing waves of white keel-shaped flowers with butterfly wings. Here they were flecked with violet like bean-blossom, there with rose like pea-blossom, and when the wind shook them together they were lovelier than the flowers of the loveliest garden plots. Luck of the Bean-rows sprang forward; he recognised it all—the enlarged field, the improved cabin, his father and mother alive, hastening now to meet him as eagerly as their old limbs would carry them, to tell him that not a day had passed since he went away without their receiving news of him in the evening, and with the news kindly gifts which had cheered them, and good hopes of his return, which had kept them alive. [Illustration: [Elderly couple]] The Luck embraced them fondly, and gave them each an arm to accompany him to his palace. Now they wondered more and more as they approached it! Luck of the Bean-rows was afraid of overshadowing their joy, yet he could not help saying: “Ah, if you had seen Pea-Blossom! But it is six years since she married.” “Since I married you,” said a gentle voice, and Pea-Blossom threw wide the iron gates: “My choice was made then, do you not remember? Do come in,” she continued, kissing the old man and the old woman, who could not take their eyes off her, for she too had grown six years older and was now sixteen; “Do come in! This is your son’s home, and it is in the land of the spirit and of day dreams where one no longer grows old and where no one dies.” [Illustration: [Princess]] It would have been difficult to welcome these poor people with better news.