she felt quite happy--she was sure that her love was returned. But his
thoughts were far more ambitious, as the thoughts of a man often
are. He dreamed that he was a real street boy, that he possessed
four real pennies, and that he had bought the gingerbread lady, and
ate her up. And so they lay on the counter for days and weeks, till
they grew hard and dry; but the thoughts of the maiden became ever
more tender and womanly. 'Ah well, it is enough for me that I have
been able to live on the same counter with him,' said she one day;
when suddenly, 'crack,' and she broke in two. 'Ah,' said the
gingerbread man to himself, 'if she had only known of my love, she
would have kept together a little longer.' And here they both are, and
that is their history," said the cake man. "You think the history of
their lives and their silent love, which never came to anything,
very remarkable; and there they are for you." So saying, he gave
Joanna the gingerbread man, who was still quite whole--and to Knud the
broken maiden; but the children had been so much impressed by the
story, that they had not the heart to eat the lovers up.

The next day they went into the churchyard, and took the two
cake figures with them, and sat down under the church wall, which
was covered with luxuriant ivy in summer and winter, and looked as
if hung with rich tapestry. They stuck up the two gingerbread
figures in the sunshine among the green leaves, and then told the
story, and all about the silent love which came to nothing, to a group
of children. They called it, "love," because the story was so
lovely, and the other children had the same opinion. But when they
turned to look at the gingerbread pair, the broken maiden was gone!
A great boy, out of wickedness, had eaten her up. At first the
children cried about it; but afterwards, thinking very probably that
the poor lover ought not to be left alone in the world, they ate him
up too: but they never forgot the story.

The two children still continued to play together by the
elder-tree, and under the willow; and the little maiden sang beautiful
songs, with a voice that was as clear as a bell. Knud, on the
contrary, had not a note of music in him, but knew the words of the
songs, and that of course is something. The people of Kjoge, and
even the rich wife of the man who kept the fancy shop, would stand and
listen while Joanna was singing, and say, "She has really a very sweet
voice."

Those were happy day