Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/240

228 they say; but more beautiful seemed to Anthony the beech-woods around the Wartburg; mightier and more venerable seemed to him the old oaks round the great castle, where the climbing plants hung in festoons on the granite rocks of the cliffs. Sweeter to him its apple-blossoms than any in the Danish land; he could still distinctly smell their pure fragrance. Then a tear rose and fell, and the light shone; he saw plainly two little children, a boy and a girl, playing. The boy had rosy cheeks, yellow curling hair, and honest blue eyes—it was the rich merchant's son, little Anthony himself. The little girl had brown eyes and black hair; bright and clever she looked; it was the Burgomaster's daughter, Molly. The two children were playing with an apple; they shook it and listened to the pips rattling inside. Then they cut it in two, and each of them had half; they ate it up and the pips as well, all but one, which they must put into the earth, said the little girl.

"Then you will see that something will come up, something you would never expect; a whole apple-tree will come up, only not at once."

And they planted the pip in a flower-pot; both of them were very busy over it; the boy made a hole in the earth with his finger, the little girl put in the pip, and they both pushed the earth back over it.

"Now you must not take it out in the morning to see if it has a root," she said; "one must never do that! I did it with my flowers, only twice, just to see if they were growing, for then I knew no better, and the flowers died."

Anthony kept the flower-pot, and every morning, all through the winter, he looked at it; but there was nothing to be seen but the brown earth. Soon, however,