t least so much of it, that one could find one's way there.
Among the leaves of the hedges stood bottles, with a light in each;
and among them was also the bottle we know, and which was destined one
day to finish its career as a bottle-neck, a bird's drinking-glass.
Everything here appeared lovely to our bottle, for it was once more in
the greenwood, amid joy and feasting, and heard song and music, and
the noise and murmur of a crowd, especially in that part of the garden
where the lamps blazed and the paper lanterns displayed their many
colours. Thus it stood, in a distant walk certainly, but that made it
the more important; for it bore its light, and was at once ornamental
and useful, and that is as it should be: in such an hour one forgets
twenty years spent in a loft, and it is right one should do so.

There passed close to it a pair, like the pair who had walked together
long ago in the wood, the sailor and the tanner's daughter; the bottle
seemed to experience all that over again. In the garden were walking
not only the guests, but other people who were allowed to view all the
splendour; and among these latter came an old maid who seemed to stand
alone in the world. She was just thinking, like the bottle, of the
greenwood, and of a young betrothed pair--of a pair which concerned
her very nearly, a pair in which she had an interest, and of which she
had been a part, in that happiest hour of her life--the hour one never
forgets, if one should become ever so old a maid. But she did not know
our bottle, nor did the bottle recognize the old maid: it is thus we
pass each other in the world, meeting again and again, as these two
met, now that they were together again in the same town.

From the garden the bottle was dispatched once more to the wine
merchant's, where it was filled with wine, and sold to the aeronaut,
who was to make an ascent in his balloon on the following Sunday. A
great crowd had assembled to witness the sight; military music had
been provided, and many other preparations had been made. The bottle
saw everything, from a basket in which it lay next to a live rabbit,
which latter was quite bewildered because he knew he was to be taken
up into the air, and let down again in a parachute; but the bottle
knew nothing of the "up" or the "down;" it only saw the balloon
swelling up bigger and bigger, and at last, when it could swell no
more, beginning to rise, and to grow more and more restless. The ropes
that