ell to pieces, and he fell with it and broke
his neck. However, he had a splendid funeral, with the city flags
and music in the procession; flowers were strewn on the pavement,
and three orations were spoken over his grave, each one longer than
the other. He would have liked this very much during his life, as well
as the poems about him in the papers, for he liked nothing so well
as to be talked of. A monument was also erected over his grave. It was
only another storey over him, but that was "something," Now he was
dead, like the three other brothers.

The youngest--the critic--outlived them all, which was quite right
for him. It gave him the opportunity of having the last word, which to
him was of great importance. People always said he had a good
head-piece. At last his hour came, and he died, and arrived at the
gates of heaven. Souls always enter these gates in pairs; so he
found himself standing and waiting for admission with another; and who
should it be but old dame Margaret, from the house on the dyke! "It is
evidently for the sake of contrast that I and this wretched soul
should arrive here exactly at the same time," said the critic. "Pray
who are you, my good woman?" said he; "do you want to get in here
too?"

And the old woman curtsied as well as she could; she thought it
must be St. Peter himself who spoke to her. "I am a poor old woman,"
she said, "without my family. I am old Margaret, that lived in the
house on the dyke."

"Well, and what have you done--what great deed have you
performed down below?"

"I have done nothing at all in the world that could give me a
claim to have these doors open for me," she said. "It would be only
through mercy that I can be allowed to slip in through the gate."

"In what manner did you leave the world?" he asked, just for the
sake of saying something; for it made him feel very weary to stand
there and wait.

"How I left the world?" she replied; "why, I can scarcely tell
you. During the last years of my life I was sick and miserable, and
I was unable to bear creeping out of bed suddenly into the frost and
cold. Last winter was a hard winter, but I have got over it all now.
There were a few mild days, as your honor, no doubt, knows. The ice
lay thickly on the lake, as far one could see. The people came from
the town, and walked upon it, and they say there were dancing and
skating upon it, I believe, and a great feasting. The sound of
beautiful music came into my poor