Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/213

Rh want of care; that he can write incorrect verses may be seen on page 25, where there are two false quantities. A study of the Ancients is recommended, and so on!'

"I went away," said the moon, "and peeped through the window into the aunt's room where the cherished poet sat, the tame one. He was worshipped by all the guests, and quite happy. I sought the other poet, the wild one; he was also at a large party, in the house of one of his admirers, where they were talking of the other poet's book. 'I mean to read yours, too,' said Mæcenas; 'but you know I never tell you anything but what I think, and, to tell the truth, I do not expect great things of you, you are too wild, and too fantastic; but I acknowledge that as a man you are very respectable.'

"A young girl sat in a corner, and she read in a book these words;

FOURTEENTH EVENING

The moon said to me: "There are two cottages by the roadside in the wood; the doors are low and the windows crooked, but the buckthorn and the berberis cluster round them. The roofs are overgrown with moss, yellow flowers and houseleek. There are only cabbages and potatoes in the little garden, but near the fence is a flowering elder-bush, and beneath it sat a little girl; her brown eyes were fixed upon the old oak between the cottages. It had a great gnarled trunk, and the crown had been sawed off, and the stork had built his nest on the top of the trunk. He was standing there now clattering his beak. A little boy came out and placed himself beside the girl; they were brother and sister.

"'What are you looking at?' he asked.

"'I am looking at the stork,' she said; 'the woman next