t us is considered so beautiful, is
thought on earth to be quite ugly; they do not know any better, and
they think it necessary to have two stout props, which they call legs,
in order to be handsome."

Then the little mermaid sighed, and looked sorrowfully at her
fish's tail. "Let us be happy," said the old lady, "and dart and
spring about during the three hundred years that we have to live,
which is really quite long enough; after that we can rest ourselves
all the better. This evening we are going to have a court ball."

It is one of those splendid sights which we can never see on
earth. The walls and the ceiling of the large ball-room were of thick,
but transparent crystal. May hundreds of colossal shells, some of a
deep red, others of a grass green, stood on each side in rows, with
blue fire in them, which lighted up the whole saloon, and shone
through the walls, so that the sea was also illuminated. Innumerable
fishes, great and small, swam past the crystal walls; on some of
them the scales glowed with a purple brilliancy, and on others they
shone like silver and gold. Through the halls flowed a broad stream,
and in it danced the mermen and the mermaids to the music of their own
sweet singing. No one on earth has such a lovely voice as theirs.
The little mermaid sang more sweetly than them all. The whole court
applauded her with hands and tails; and for a moment her heart felt
quite gay, for she knew she had the loveliest voice of any on earth or
in the sea. But she soon thought again of the world above her, for she
could not forget the charming prince, nor her sorrow that she had
not an immortal soul like his; therefore she crept away silently out
of her father's palace, and while everything within was gladness and
song, she sat in her own little garden sorrowful and alone. Then she
heard the bugle sounding through the water, and thought--"He is
certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes depend, and in whose
hands I should like to place the happiness of my life. I will
venture all for him, and to win an immortal soul, while my sisters are
dancing in my father's palace, I will go to the sea witch, of whom I
have always been so much afraid, but she can give me counsel and
help."

And then the little mermaid went out from her garden, and took the
road to the foaming whirlpools, behind which the sorceress lived.
She had never been that way before: neither flowers nor grass grew
there; nothing but bare, gray, sa