the wall, the stones from Marshal
Stig's castle, and she thought of his daughters:--

'The eldest took the younger's hand,
And out in the wide world they went.'

She thought upon that song. Here there were three, and their father
was with them. They passed as beggars over the same road where they
had so often driven in their splendid carriage to SMIDSTRUP MARK, to a
house with mud floors that was let for ten marks a year--their new
manor-house, with bare walls and empty closets. The crows and the
jackdaws flew after them, and cried, as if in derision, 'From the
nest--from the nest! away--away!' as the birds had screeched at
Borreby Wood when the trees were cut down.

"And thus they entered the humble house at Smidstrup Mark, and I
wandered away over moors and meadows, through naked hedges and
leafless woods, to the open sea--to other lands. Wheugh--wheugh!
On--on--on!"

What became of Waldemar Daae? What became of his daughters? The wind
will tell.

"The last of them I saw was Anna Dorthea, the pale hyacinth. She had
become old and decrepit: that was about fifty years after she had left
the castle. She lived the longest--she saw them all out."

* * * * *

"Yonder, on the heath, near the town of Viborg, stood the dean's
handsome house, built of red granite. The smoke rolled plentifully
from its chimneys. The gentle lady and her beautiful daughters sat on
the balcony, and looked over their pretty garden on the brown heath.
At what were they gazing? They were looking at the storks' nests, on a
castle that was almost in ruins. The roof, where there was any roof,
was covered with moss and houseleeks; but the best part of it
sustained the storks' nests--that was the only portion which was in
tolerable repair.

"It was a place to look at, not to dwell in. I had to be cautious with
it," said the wind. "For the sake of the storks the house was allowed
to stand, else it was really a disgrace to the heath. The dean would
not have the storks driven away; so the dilapidated building was
permitted to remain, and a poor woman was permitted to live in it. She
had to thank the Egyptian birds for that--or was it a reward for
having formerly begged that the nests of their wild black kindred
might be spared in Borreby Wood? _Then_ the wretched pauper was a
young girl--a lovely pale hyacinth in the noble flower parterre. She
remembered it well--poor Anna Dorthea!

"'Oh! oh! Yes, mankind ca