a secret, a letter,
a last parting sigh. For full twenty years it stood in the loft, and
it might have stayed there longer but that the house was going to be
rebuilt. The bottle was discovered when the roof was taken off; they
talked about it, but the bottle did not understand what they said--a
language is not to be learnt by living in a loft, even for twenty
years. "If I had been down stairs in the room," thought the bottle, "I
might have learnt it." It was now washed and rinsed, which process was
really quite necessary, and afterwards it looked clean and
transparent, and felt young again in its old age; but the paper
which it had carried so faithfully was destroyed in the washing.
They filled the bottle with seeds, though it scarcely knew what had
been placed in it. Then they corked it down tightly, and carefully
wrapped it up. There not even the light of a torch or lantern could
reach it, much less the brightness of the sun or moon. "And yet,"
thought the bottle, "men go on a journey that they may see as much
as possible, and I can see nothing." However, it did something quite
as important; it travelled to the place of its destination, and was
unpacked.

"What trouble they have taken with that bottle over yonder!"
said one, "and very likely it is broken after all." But the bottle
was not broken, and, better still, it understood every word that was
said: this language it had heard at the furnaces and at the wine
merchant's; in the forest and on the ship,--it was the only good old
language it could understand. It had returned home, and the language
was as a welcome greeting. For very joy, it felt ready to jump out
of people's hands, and scarcely noticed that its cork had been
drawn, and its contents emptied out, till it found itself carried to a
cellar, to be left there and forgotten. "There's no place like home,
even if it's a cellar." It never occurred to him to think that he
might lie there for years, he felt so comfortable. For many long years
he remained in the cellar, till at last some people came to carry away
the bottles, and ours amongst the number.

Out in the garden there was a great festival. Brilliant lamps hung
in festoons from tree to tree; and paper lanterns, through which the
light shone till they looked like transparent tulips. It was a
beautiful evening, and the weather mild and clear. The stars twinkled;
and the new moon, in the form of a crescent, was surrounded by the
shadowy disc of the whole