“Many thanks to you, then,” replied the rats, and they went their ways.

The little mice also kept away after this, and the tree sighed and said, “It was very pleasant when the merry little mice sat around me and listened while I talked.  Now that is all past too.  However, I shall consider myself happy when someone comes to take me out of this place.”

But would this ever happen?  Yes; one morning people came to clear up the garret; the boxes were packed away, and the tree was pulled out of the corner and thrown roughly on the floor; then the servants dragged it out upon the staircase where the daylight shone.

“Now life is beginning again,” said the tree, rejoicing in the sunshine and fresh air.  Then it was carried downstairs and taken into the courtyard so quickly that it forgot to think of itself, and could only look about, there was so much to be seen.

The court was close to a garden, where everything looked blooming.  Fresh and fragrant roses hung over the little palings.  The linden trees were in blossom; while the swallows flew here and there crying, “Twit, twit, twit, my mate is coming;” but it was not the fir tree they meant.

“Now I shall live,” cried the tree joyfully, spreading out its branches; but alas! they were all withered and yellow, and it lay in a corner amongst weeds and nettles.  The star of gold paper still stuck in the top of the tree, and glittered in the sunshine.

In the same courtyard two of the merry children were playing who had danced round the tree at Christmas time and had been so happy.  The youngest saw the gilded star and ran and pulled it off the tree.  “Look what is sticking to the ugly old fir tree,” said the child, treading on the branches till they crackled under his boots.

And the tree saw all the fresh, bright flowers in the garden, and then looked at itself, and wished it had remained in the dark corner of the garret.  It thought of its fresh youth in the forest, of the merry Christmas evening, and of the little mice who had listened to the story of Humpty-Dumpty.

“Past! past!” said the poor tree.  “Oh, had I but enjoyed myself while I could have done so! but now it is too late.”

Then a lad came and chopped the tree into small pieces, till a large bundle lay in a heap on the ground.  The pieces were placed in the fire, and they blazed up brightly, while the tree sighed so deeply that each sigh was like a little pistol shot.  Then the children, who were at play, came and seated themselves in front of the fire and looked at it, and cried, “Pop, pop.”  But at each “pop,” which was a deep sigh, the tree was thinking of a summer day in the forest, or of some winter night there when the stars shone brightly, and of Christmas evening and of Humpty-Dumpty, the only story it had ever heard, or knew how to relate,—­till at last it was consumed.

The boys still played in the garden, and the youngest wore the golden star on his breast with which the tree had been adorned during the happiest evening of its existence.  Now all was past; the tree’s life was past, and the story also past! for all stories must come to an end some time or other.