ether; then
again the most joyful would come, but these had the deepest shadows of
all.

The beech woods of Denmark are acknowledged to be fine, but the woods
of Thuringia arose far more beautiful in the eyes of Anthony. More
mighty and more venerable seemed to him the old oaks around the proud
knightly castle, where the creeping plants hung down over the stony
blocks of the rock; sweeter there bloomed the flowers of the apple
tree than in the Danish land. This he remembered very vividly. A
glittering tear rolled down over his cheek; and in this tear he could
plainly see two children playing--a boy and a girl. The boy had red
cheeks, and yellow curling hair, and honest blue eyes. He was the son
of the merchant Anthony--it was himself. The little girl had brown
eyes and black hair, and had a bright clever look. She was the
burgomaster's daughter Molly. The two were playing with an apple. They
shook the apple, and heard the pips rattling in it. Then they cut the
apple in two, and each of them took a half; they divided even the
pips, and ate them all but one, which the little girl proposed that
they should lay in the earth.

"Then you shall see," she said, "what will come out. It will be
something you don't at all expect. A whole apple tree will come out,
but not directly."

And she put the pip in a flower-pot, and both were very busy and eager
about it. The boy made a hole in the earth with his finger, and the
little girl dropped the pip in it, and they both covered it with
earth.

"Now, you must not take it out to-morrow to see if it has struck
root," said Molly. "That won't do at all. I did it with my flowers;
but only twice. I wanted to see if they were growing--and I didn't
know any better then--and the plants withered."

Anthony took away the flower-pot, and every morning, the whole winter
through, he looked at it; but nothing was to be seen but the black
earth. At length, however, the spring came, and the sun shone warm
again; and two little green leaves came up out of the pot.

"Those are for me and Molly," said the boy. "That's beautiful--that's
marvellously beautiful!"

Soon a third leaf made its appearance. Whom did that represent? Yes,
and there came another, and yet another. Day by day and week by week
they grew larger, and the plant began to take the form of a real tree.
And all this was now mirrored in a single tear, which was wiped away
and disappeared; but it might come again from its source in t