t the rabbit down
in the parachute, and then, having drunk the health of the crowd
below, throw the bottle high up in the air. Little did she think that
it was just the same bottle she had seen thrown up high in honour of
herself and her lover, on a well-remembered happy day amidst the green
wood, when she was young.

The bottle had no time to think, it was so unexpectedly exalted to the
highest position it had ever attained in its life. The roofs and the
spires lay far below, and the people looked as small as pigmies.

It now descended, and that at a different rate of speed from the
rabbit. The bottle cast somersaults in the air--it felt itself so
young, so buoyant. It was half full of wine, but not long. What a trip
that was! The sun shone upon the bottle, and all the crowd looked up
at it. The balloon was soon far away, and the bottle was soon also
out of sight, for it fell upon a roof and broke in two; but the
fragments rebounded again, and leaped and rolled till they reached the
yard below, where they lay in smaller pieces; for only the neck of the
bottle escaped destruction, and it looked as if it had been cut round
by a diamond.

"It may still serve as a glass for a bird's cage," said the man in the
cellar.

But he himself had neither a bird nor a cage, and it would have cost
too much to buy these because he had found the neck of a bottle that
would answer for a glass. The old maid, however, up in the garret,
might make use of it; and so the neck of the bottle was sent up to
her. A cork was fitted to it, and, as first mentioned, after its many
changes, it was filled with fresh water, and was hung in front of the
cage of the little bird, that sang until its warbling became almost
overpowering.

"Yes, you may well sing," was what the neck of the bottle had said.

It was somewhat of a wonder, as it had been up in a balloon; but with
more of its history no one was acquainted. Now it hung as a bird's
glass, it could hear the people driving and walking in the street
below, and it could hear the old maid talking in her room to a female
friend of her youthful days. They were chatting together, but speaking
of the myrtle plant in the window, not of the neck of the bottle.

"You must not throw away two rix dollars for a wedding bouquet for
your daughter," said the old maid. "You shall have one from me full of
flowers. Look how pretty that plant is! Ah! it is a slip of the myrtle
tree you gave me the day after my b