to sit and breathe on them to get a peep-hole over to the old
house, and there the snow had been blown into all the carved work and
inscriptions; it lay quite up over the steps, just as if there was no
one at home--nor was there any one at home--the old man was dead!

In the evening there was a hearse seen before the door, and he was borne
into it in his coffin: he was now to go out into the country, to lie in
his grave. He was driven out there, but no one followed; all his friends
were dead, and the little boy kissed his hand to the coffin as it was
driven away.

Some days afterwards there was an auction at the old house, and the
little boy saw from his window how they carried the old knights and the
old ladies away, the flower-pots with the long ears, the old chairs, and
the old clothes-presses. Something came here, and something came there;
the portrait of her who had been found at the broker's came to the
broker's again; and there it hung, for no one knew her more--no one
cared about the old picture.

In the spring they pulled the house down, for, as people said, it was
a ruin. One could see from the street right into the room with the
hog's-leather hanging, which was slashed and torn; and the green grass
and leaves about the balcony hung quite wild about the falling beams.
And then it was put to rights.

"That was a relief," said the neighboring houses.

A fine house was built there, with large windows, and smooth white
walls; but before it, where the old house had in fact stood, was a
little garden laid out, and a wild grapevine ran up the wall of the
neighboring house. Before the garden there was a large iron railing
with an iron door, it looked quite splendid, and people stood still and
peeped in, and the sparrows hung by scores in the vine, and chattered
away at each other as well as they could, but it was not about the old
house, for they could not remember it, so many years had passed--so many
that the little boy had grown up to a whole man, yes, a clever man, and
a pleasure to his parents; and he had just been married, and, together
with his little wife, had come to live in the house here, where the
garden was; and he stood by her there whilst she planted a field-flower
that she found so pretty; she planted it with her little hand, and
pressed the earth around it with her fingers. Oh! what was that? She
had stuck herself. There sat something pointed, straight out of the soft
mould.

It was--yes, guess