cebergs as they were tossed about by the heaving sea. On all the
ships the sails were reefed with fear and trembling, while she sat on
the floating iceberg, calmly watching the lightning as it darted its
forked flashes into the sea.

Each of the sisters, when first she had permission to rise to the
surface, was delighted with the new and beautiful sights. Now that they
were grown-up girls and could go when they pleased, they had become
quite indifferent about it. They soon wished themselves back again, and
after a month had passed they said it was much more beautiful down below
and pleasanter to be at home.

Yet often, in the evening hours, the five sisters would twine their arms
about each other and rise to the surface together. Their voices were
more charming than that of any human being, and before the approach of a
storm, when they feared that a ship might be lost, they swam before the
vessel, singing enchanting songs of the delights to be found in the
depths of the sea and begging the voyagers not to fear if they sank to
the bottom. But the sailors could not understand the song and thought it
was the sighing of the storm. These things were never beautiful to them,
for if the ship sank, the men were drowned and their dead bodies alone
reached the palace of the Sea King.

When the sisters rose, arm in arm, through the water, their youngest
sister would stand quite alone, looking after them, ready to cry--only,
since mermaids have no tears, she suffered more acutely.

"Oh, were I but fifteen years old!" said she. "I know that I shall love
the world up there, and all the people who live in it."

At last she reached her fifteenth year.

"Well, now you are grown up," said the old dowager, her grandmother.
"Come, and let me adorn you like your sisters." And she placed in her
hair a wreath of white lilies, of which every flower leaf was half a
pearl. Then the old lady ordered eight great oysters to attach
themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.

"But they hurt me so," said the little mermaid.

"Yes, I know; pride must suffer pain," replied the old lady.

Oh, how gladly she would have shaken off all this grandeur and laid
aside the heavy wreath! The red flowers in her own garden would have
suited her much better. But she could not change herself, so she said
farewell and rose as lightly as a bubble to the surface of the water.

The sun had just set when she raised her head above the waves. Th