for she was a lonely old woman, and would
have liked Gerda to become her own little girl and stay with her always.

Gerda did enjoy the red cherries, and, while she was still eating them,
the old, old woman stole out to the garden and waved her hooked stick
over the rose-bushes and they quickly sank beneath the brown earth.
For Gerda had told her how fond Kay had once been of their little
rose-bushes in the balcony, and the witch was afraid the sight of roses
would remind the little girl of her lost playmate. But now that the
roses had vanished, Gerda might come into the garden.

How the child danced for joy past the lilies and bluebells, how she
suddenly fell on her knees to smell the pinks and mignonette, and then
danced off again, in and out among the sunflowers and hollyhocks!

Gerda was perfectly happy now, and played among the flowers until the
sun sank behind the cherry-trees. Then the old, old woman again took her
by the hand, and led her to the little house. And she undressed her and
put her into a little bed of white violets, and there the little girl
dreamed sweet dreams.

The next day and the next again and for many more Gerda played among the
flowers in the garden.

One morning, as the old woman sat near, Gerda looked at her hat with the
wonderful painted flowers. Prettiest of all was a rose.

"A rose! Why, surely I have seen none in the garden," thought Gerda, and
she danced off in search.

But she could find none, and in her disappointment hot tears fell. And
they fell on the very spot where the roses had grown, and as soon as
the warm drops moistened the earth, the rose-bushes sprang up.

"You are beautiful, beautiful," she said; but in a moment the tears fell
again, for she thought of the rose-bushes in the balcony, and she
remembered Kay.

"Oh Kay, dear, dear Kay, is he dead?" she asked the roses.

"No, he is not dead," they answered, "for we have been beneath the brown
earth, and he is not there."

"Then where, oh, where is he?" and she went from flower to flower
whispering, "Have you seen little Kay?"

But the flowers stood in the sunshine, dreaming their own dreams, and
these they told the little maiden gladly, but of Kay they could not tell
her, for they knew nothing.

Then the little girl ran down the garden path until she came to the
garden gate. She pressed the rusty latch. The gate flew open, and Gerda
ran out on her little bare feet into the green fields. And she ran, and
she