then the marriage was celebrated. Six earth-worms shone as well as
they could. In other respects the whole went off very quietly, for the
old folks could not bear noise and merriment; but old Dame Snail made
a brilliant speech. Father Snail could not speak, he was too much
affected; and so they gave them as a dowry and inheritance, the whole
forest of burdocks, and said--what they had always said--that it was
the best in the world; and if they lived honestly and decently, and
increased and multiplied, they and their children would once in the
course of time come to the manor-house, be boiled black, and laid on
silver dishes. After this speech was made, the old ones crept into their
shells, and never more came out. They slept; the young couple governed
in the forest, and had a numerous progeny, but they were never boiled,
and never came on the silver dishes; so from this they concluded that
the manor-house had fallen to ruins, and that all the men in the world
were extinct; and as no one contradicted them, so, of course it was so.
And the rain beat on the dock-leaves to make drum-music for their sake,
and the sun shone in order to give the burdock forest a color for their
sakes; and they were very happy, and the whole family was happy; for
they, indeed were so.

THE STORY OF A MOTHER

A mother sat there with her little child. She was so downcast, so
afraid that it should die! It was so pale, the small eyes had closed
themselves, and it drew its breath so softly, now and then, with a
deep respiration, as if it sighed; and the mother looked still more
sorrowfully on the little creature.

Then a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a poor old man
wrapped up as in a large horse-cloth, for it warms one, and he needed
it, as it was the cold winter season! Everything out-of-doors was
covered with ice and snow, and the wind blew so that it cut the face.

As the old man trembled with cold, and the little child slept a moment,
the mother went and poured some ale into a pot and set it on the stove,
that it might be warm for him; the old man sat and rocked the cradle,
and the mother sat down on a chair close by him, and looked at her
little sick child that drew its breath so deep, and raised its little
hand.

"Do you not think that I shall save him?" said she. "Our Lord will not
take him from me!"

And the old man--it was Death himself--he nodded so strangely, it could
just as well signify yes as no. And the moth