n
he went on to talk about the book, and of the strange picture he had
seen in it the day before she appeared.

'I think, now,' he said, 'that the wanderer in the forest must have
been myself; and the precious pearl that was given to him out of the
fountain was you. But who was the blind and dumb man with the onion?'

At that Theeda's head dropped, and she sank slowly down on the sand,
and she hid her face in her hands.

'What is the matter, Theeda?' cried Oscar; 'dearest Theeda, what has
happened?'

She partly lifted herself up, though still crouching in the sand, and
held out her arms towards Oscar as if entreating him to do something.
And now, for the first time, he could not read her thought. She seemed
to beseech him; but he, who would have given her everything, knew not
for what she besought him. At last she trailed herself to the side of
the vase and put up her lips to be kissed.

'I love you, Theeda!' said he. 'See! with my whole heart!'

But all that day Theeda's sadness did not wholly pass away; and each
morning afterwards, when Oscar first came into the room, she would
meet him with a kind of timorousness, and would not be happy until he
had kissed her through the crystal, and had told her again that he
loved her.

She was by no means an idle little maiden, however. The vase was her
home and her garden, and she was busy many hours a day in keeping it
in order and making it more and more beautiful. It was wonderful how
much she found to do. In some places, where the red and green weeds
grew too thick, she pruned them with a little knife that Oscar had
given her, made out of a piece of a mussel shell, and cut away the
pieces that were decayed. She sifted the brown sand between her
fingers, and cleansed it from all impurities; and she brought the
prettiest of the pebbles and laid them in tasteful patterns. She
plaited a kind of hammock out of the sea grass, and hung it at the
entrance of the archway; and in the afternoons, when the sun was hot,
she lay in it and took her siesta. And now Oscar, from time to time,
put in little sea-animals to keep her company and amuse her; he found
many such in the rock pools along the shore. There were prawns, almost
transparent, striped like zebras with fine pink stripes, and having
long feelers like hairs, which they waved about, and, as it were,
asked delicate questions with them of everything that came near. They
moved as lightly as thistledown and as swiftly as sun