‘Oh, how I have been delayed,’ said the little girl, ’I ought to have been looking for Kay!  Don’t you know where he is?’ she asked the roses.  ‘Do you think he is dead and gone?’

‘He is not dead,’ said the roses.  ’For we have been down underground, you know, and all the dead people are there, but Kay is not among them.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ said little Gerda, and then she went to the other flowers and looked into their cups and said, ‘Do you know where Kay is?’

But each flower stood in the sun and dreamt its own dreams.  Little Gerda heard many of these, but never anything about Kay.

And what said the Tiger lilies?

’Do you hear the drum? rub-a-dub, it has only two notes, rub-a-dub, always the same.  The wailing of women and the cry of the preacher.  The Hindu woman in her long red garment stands on the pile, while the flames surround her and her dead husband.  But the woman is only thinking of the living man in the circle round, whose eyes burn with a fiercer fire than that of the flames which consume the body.  Do the flames of the heart die in the fire?’

‘I understand nothing about that,’ said little Gerda.

‘That is my story,’ said the Tiger lily.

‘What does the convolvulus say?’

’An old castle is perched high over a narrow mountain path, it is closely covered with ivy, almost hiding the old red walls, and creeping up leaf upon leaf right round the balcony where stands a beautiful maiden.  She bends over the balustrade and looks eagerly up the road.  No rose on its stem is fresher than she; no apple blossom wafted by the wind moves more lightly.  Her silken robes rustle softly as she bends over and says, ‘Will he never come?’’

‘Is it Kay you mean?’ asked Gerda.

‘I am only talking about my own story, my dream,’ answered the convolvulus.

What said the little snowdrop?

’Between two trees a rope with a board is hanging; it is a swing.  Two pretty little girls in snowy frocks and green ribbons fluttering on their hats are seated on it.  Their brother, who is bigger than they are, stands up behind them; he has his arms round the ropes for supports, and holds in one hand a little bowl and in the other a clay pipe.  He is blowing soap-bubbles.  As the swing moves the bubbles fly upwards in all their changing colours, the last one still hangs from the pipe swayed by the wind, and the swing goes on.  A little black dog runs up, he is almost as light as the bubbles, he stands up on his hind legs and wants to be taken into the swing, but it does not stop.  The little dog falls with an angry bark; they jeer at it; the bubble bursts.  A swinging plank, a fluttering foam picture—­that is my story!’

’I daresay what you tell me is very pretty, but you speak so sadly and you never mention little Kay.’

What says the hyacinth?