None of the Emperor’s clothes had been so successful before.

‘But he has got nothing on,’ said a little child.

‘Oh, listen to the innocent,’ said its father; and one person whispered to the other what the child had said.  ’He has nothing on; a child says he has nothing on!’

‘But he has nothing on!’ at last cried all the people.

The Emperor writhed, for he knew it was true, but he thought ’the procession must go on now,’ so held himself stiffer than ever, and the chamberlains held up the invisible train.

THE WIND’S TALE

ABOUT WALDEMAR DAA AND HIS DAUGHTERS

When the wind sweeps across a field of grass it makes little ripples in it like a lake; in a field of corn it makes great waves like the sea itself:  this is the wind’s frolic.  Then listen to the stories it tells; it sings them aloud, one kind of song among the trees of the forest, and a very different one when it is pent up within walls with all their cracks and crannies.  Do you see how the wind chases the white fleecy clouds as if they were a flock of sheep?  Do you hear the wind down there, howling in the open doorway like a watchman winding his horn?  Then, too, how he whistles in the chimneys, making the fire crackle and sparkle.  How cosy it is to sit in the warm glow of the fire listening to the tales it has to tell!  Let the wind tell its own story!  It can tell you more adventures than all of us put together.  Listen now:—­

‘Whew!—­Whew!—­Fare away!’ That was the refrain of his song.

‘Close to the Great Belt stands an old mansion with thick red walls,’ says the wind.  ’I know every stone of it; I knew them before when they formed part of Marsk Stig’s Castle on the Ness.  It had to come down.  The stones were used again, and made a new wall of a new castle in another place—­Borreby Hall as it now stands.

’I have watched the highborn men and women of all the various races who have lived there, and now I am going to tell you about Waldemar Daa and his daughters!

’He held his head very high, for he came of a royal stock!  He knew more than the mere chasing of a stag, or the emptying of a flagon; he knew how to manage his affairs, he said himself.

’His lady wife walked proudly across the brightly polished floors, in her gold brocaded kirtle; the tapestries in the rooms were gorgeous, and the furniture of costly carved woods.  She had brought much gold and silver plate into the house with her, and the cellars were full of German ale, when there was anything there at all.  Fiery black horses neighed in the stables; Borreby Hall was a very rich place when wealth came there.

’Then there were the children, three dainty maidens, Ida, Johanna and Anna Dorothea.  I remember their names well.

’They were rich and aristocratic people, and they were born and bred in wealth!  Whew!—­whew!—­fare away!’ roared the wind, then he went on with his story.