built on account of them. Now, this seemed to them, at
all events, too much; however, as it was for the roses that the
persons showed all their love, they would remain no longer. "Chirrup!"
said they, and swept the floor with their tails, and winked with one
eye at the roses. They had not looked at them long before they
convinced themselves that they were their old neighbors. And they
really were so. The painter who had drawn the rose-bush beside the
burned-down house, had afterwards obtained permission to dig it up,
and had given it to the architect--for more beautiful roses had never
been seen--and the architect had planted it on Thorwaldsen's grave,
where it bloomed as a symbol of the beautiful, and gave up its red
fragrant leaves to be carried to distant lands as a remembrance.

"Have you got an appointment here in town?" asked the sparrows.

And the roses nodded: they recognised their brown neighbors, and
rejoiced to see them again. "How delightful it is to live and to
bloom, to see old friends again, and every day to look on happy faces!
It is as if every day were a holy-day."

"Chirrup!" said the sparrows. "Yes, it is in truth our old neighbors;
their origin--from the pond--is still quite clear in our memory!
Chirrup! How they have risen in the world! Yes, Fortune favors some
while they sleep! Ah! there is a withered leaf that I see quite
plainly." And they pecked at it so long till the leaf fell off; and
the tree stood there greener and more fresh, the roses gave forth
their fragrance in the sunshine over Thorwaldsen's grave, with whose
immortal name, they were united.

------------

THE DARNING-NEEDLE.

There was once upon a time a darning needle, that imagined itself so
fine, that at last it fancied it was a sewing-needle.

"Now, pay attention, and hold me firmly!" said the darning-needle to
the fingers that were taking it out. "Do not let me fall! If I fall on
the ground, I shall certainly never be found again, so fine am I."

"Pretty well as to that," answered the fingers; and so saying, they
took hold of it by the body.

"Look, I come with a train!" said the darning-needle, drawing a long
thread after it, but there was no knot to the thread.

The fingers directed the needle against an old pair of shoes belonging
to the cook. The upper-leather was torn, and it was now to be sewed
together.

"That is vulgar work," said the needle; "I can never get through it. I
shall break! I shall break!"