wing bigger and bigger, going deeper and
deeper inside me. My wood is mouldering away. The shell is good enough
still; and I am satisfied as long as it holds out. Then the sap can run
up from my roots to my dear, long twigs. Well ... I was thinking the
birds will come and visit me, as they are used to, and they will be sure
to bring earth with them, so that there will always be more of it as my
hole becomes deeper by degrees. And plenty of withered leaves fall on my
poor maimed top. I also positively believe that I have an earth-worm up
there. How he got there, I don't know: perhaps a bird dropped him out of
his beak. But he draws the leaves down into the earth and eats them and
turns them into mould. So I say, like the elder-bush, it will be all
right."

"So you're becoming hollow?" asked the oak.

"I am," said the willow-tree. "It can't be helped. It's not quite the
sort of thing to talk about, but it's different now, because the
dandelion was so anxious. It shall never be said of me that I took a
respectable flower as a boarder and then let her suffer mortal want."

"Who ever heard a tree talk like that?" said the oak.

"Well, I must say I agree with you this time," said the wild rose-bush.

"I don't think he will hold out very long now," said the elder-bush.

"Thank you, you good old Willow-Tree," said the dandelion. "Now I can go
on growing hopefully. I have only this year to think of. When I have
sent my seeds into the world with their little parachutes, I shall have
done all that is expected of me. I should be delighted if one of them
would stay here and grow on you."

"Many thanks," said the willow-tree.

"He accepts the sympathy of the rose-bush and the elder ... he says
thank-you to the dandelion ... and he's a relation of ours ... oh,
shocking!" said the nearest poplar.

"Shocking ... shocking ... shocking!" whispered the poplars along the
avenue.

Then evening came and night; and one and all slept. The wind had gone
down, so that there was not even the least whisper in the poplars. But
the oak on the little hillock in the fields called out to the
willow-tree:

"Pst!... Pst!... Willow-Tree!... Are you asleep?"

"I can't sleep," said the willow-tree. "It's rumbling and gnawing and
trickling and seething inside me. I can feel it coming lower and lower.
I don't know what it is, but it makes me so melancholy."

"You're becoming hollow," said the oak.

"Perhaps that's what it is," said the willow-