do not come
out in the wash--they were preserved in the nightcap, and in time
forgotten; but the old thoughts and the old dreams still remained in
the "bachelor's nightcap." Don't wish for such a cap for yourself. It
would make your forehead very hot, would make your pulse beat
feverishly, and conjure up dreams which appear like reality. The first
who wore that identical cap afterwards felt all that at once, though
it was half a century afterwards; and that man was the burgomaster
himself, who, with his wife and eleven children, was well and firmly
established, and had amassed a very tolerable amount of wealth. He was
immediately seized with dreams of unfortunate love, of bankruptcy, and
of heavy times.

"Hallo! how the nightcap burns!" he cried out, and tore it from his
head.

And a pearl rolled out, and another, and another, and they sounded and
glittered.

"This must be gout," said the burgomaster. "Something dazzles my
eyes!"

They were tears, shed half a century before by old Anthony from
Eisenach.

Every one who afterwards put that nightcap upon his head had visions
and dreams which excited him not a little. His own history was changed
into that of Anthony, and became a story; in fact, many stories. But
some one else may tell _them_. We have told the first. And our last
word is--don't wish for "The Old Bachelor's Nightcap."

THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER.

The storks tell their little ones very many stories, all of the moor
and the marsh. These stories are generally adapted to the age and
capacity of the hearers. The youngest are content if they are told
"Kribble-krabble, plurre-murre" as a story, and find it charming; but
the older ones want something with a deeper meaning, or at any rate
something relating to the family. Of the two oldest and longest
stories that have been preserved among the storks, we are only
acquainted with one, namely, that of Moses, who was exposed by his
mother on the banks of the Nile, and whom the king's daughter found,
and who afterwards became a great man and a prophet. That history is
very well known.

The second is not known yet, perhaps, because it is quite an inland
story. It has been handed down from mouth to mouth, from stork-mamma
to stork-mamma, for thousands of years, and each of them has told it
better and better; and now _we_'ll tell it best of all.

The first stork pair who told the story had their summer residence on
the wooden house of the Viking, whic