Then he felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wings, for he did not know what to do; he was so happy, and yet not at all proud, for a good heart is never proud.  He thought how he had been driven about and mocked and despised; and now he heard them all saying that he was the most beautiful of all beautiful birds.  And the lilacs bent their branches straight down into the water before him, and the sun shone warm and mild.  Then his wings rustled, he lifted his slender neck, and cried from the depths of his heart:—­

“I never dreamed of so much happiness when I was the Ugly Duckling.”

WHAT THE MOON SAW

Hear what the Moon told me:—­

“I have seen a cadet promoted to be an officer, and dressing himself for the first time in his gorgeous uniform; I have seen young girls in bridal attire, and the prince’s young bride in her wedding dress:  but I never saw such bliss as that of a little four-year-old girl whom I watched this evening.  She had got a new blue dress, and a new pink hat.  The finery was just put on, and all were calling for light, for the moonbeams that came through the window were not bright enough.  They wanted very different lights from that.  There stood the little girl, stiff as a doll, keeping her arms anxiously off her dress, and her fingers stretched wide apart.  Oh! what happiness beamed from her eyes, from her whole face.  ‘To-morrow you may go to walk in the dress,’ said the mother; and the little one looked up at her hat and down again at her dress, and smiled blissfully.  ‘Mother,’ she cried, ’what will the little dogs think when they see me in all these fine clothes?’”

THE LOVERS

From ‘Riverside Literature Series’:  1891, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

The Top and the Ball lay in a drawer among some other toys; and so the Top said to the Ball:—­“Shall we not be lovers, since we live together in the same drawer?”

But the Ball, which had a coat of morocco leather, and thought herself as good as any fine lady, had nothing to say to such a thing.  The next day came the little boy who owned the toys:  he painted the Top red and yellow, and drove a brass nail into it; and the Top looked splendidly when he turned round.

“Look at me!” he cried to the Ball.  “What do you say now?  Shall we not be lovers?  We go so nicely together?  You jump and I dance!  No one could be happier than we two should be.”

“Indeed!  Do you think so?” said the Ball.  “Perhaps you do not know that my papa and my mamma were morocco slippers, and that I have a cork inside me?”

“Yes, but I am made of mahogany,” said the Top; “and the mayor himself turned me.  He has a turning-lathe of his own, and it amuses him greatly.”

“Can I depend on that?” asked the Ball.

“May I never be whipped again if it is not true!” replied the Top.