“I have often longed for such a dear little girl,” said the old woman.  “Now you shall see how well we agree together”; and while she combed little Gerda’s hair, the child forgot her foster-brother Kay more and more, for the old woman understood magic; but she was no evil being, she only practised witchcraft a little for her own private amusement, and now she wanted very much to keep little Gerda.  She therefore went out in the garden, stretched out her crooked stick towards the rose-bushes, which, beautifully as they were blowing, all sank into the earth and no one could tell where they had stood.  The old woman feared that if Gerda should see the roses, she would then think of her own, would remember little Kay, and run away from her.

She now led Gerda into the flower-garden.  Oh, what odour and what loveliness was there!  Every flower that one could think of, and of every season, stood there in fullest bloom; no picture-book could be gayer or more beautiful.  Gerda jumped for joy, and played till the sun set behind the tall cherry-tree; she then had a pretty bed, with a red silken coverlet filled with blue violets.  She fell asleep, and had as pleasant dreams as ever a queen on her wedding-day.

The next morning she went to play with the flowers in the warm sunshine, and thus passed away a day.  Gerda knew every flower; and, numerous as they were, it still seemed to Gerda that one was wanting, though she did not know which.  One day while she was looking at the hat of the old woman painted with flowers, the most beautiful of them all seemed to her to be a rose.  The old woman had forgotten to take it from her hat when she made the others vanish in the earth.  But so it is when one’s thoughts are not collected.  “What!” said Gerda.  “Are there no roses here?” and she ran about amongst the flowerbeds, and looked, and looked, but there was not one to be found.  She then sat down and wept; but her hot tears fell just where a rose-bush had sunk; and when her warm tears watered the ground, the tree shot up suddenly as fresh and blooming as when it had been swallowed up.  Gerda kissed the roses, thought of her own dear roses at home, and with them of little Kay.

“Oh, how long I have stayed!” said the little girl.  “I intended to look for Kay!  Don’t you know where he is?” she asked of the roses.  “Do you think he is dead and gone?”

“Dead he certainly is not,” said the Roses.  “We have been in the earth where all the dead are, but Kay was not there.”

“Many thanks!” said little Gerda; and she went to the other flowers, looked into their cups, and asked, “Don’t you know where little Kay is?”

But every flower stood in the sunshine, and dreamed its own fairy tale or its own story:  and they all told her very many things, but not one knew anything of Kay.

Well, what did the Tiger-Lily say?