!" shouted the pewter
soldier as loud as he could, and threw himself off the drawers right
down on the floor.

What became of him? The old man sought, and the little boy sought; he
was away, and he stayed away.

"I shall find him!" said the old man; but he never found him. The
floor was too open--the pewter soldier had fallen through a crevice,
and there he lay as in an open tomb.

That day passed, and the little boy went home, and that week passed,
and several weeks too. The windows were quite frozen, the little boy
was obliged to sit and breathe on them to get a peep-hole over to the
old house, and there the snow had been blown into all the carved work
and inscriptions; it lay quite up over the steps, just as if there was
no one at home;--nor was there any one at home--the old man was dead!

In the evening there was a hearse seen before the door, and he was
borne into it in his coffin: he was now to go out into the country, to
lie in his grave. He was driven out there, but no one followed; all
his friends were dead, and the little boy kissed his hand to the
coffin as it was driven away.

Some days afterwards there was an auction at the old house, and the
little boy saw from his window how they carried the old knights and
the old ladies away, the flower-pots with the long ears, the old
chairs, and the old clothes-presses. Something came here, and
something came there; the portrait of her who had been found at the
broker's came to the broker's again; and there it hung, for no one
knew her more--no one cared about the old picture.

In the spring they pulled the house down, for, as people said, it was
a ruin. One could see from the street right into the room with the
hog's-leather hanging, which was slashed and torn; and the green grass
and leaves about the balcony hung quite wild about the falling
beams.--And then it was put to rights.

"That was a relief," said the neighboring houses.

* * * * *

A fine house was built there, with large windows, and smooth white
walls; but before it, where the old house had in fact stood, was a
little garden laid out, and a wild grapevine ran up the wall of the
neighboring house. Before the garden there was a large iron railing
with an iron door, it looked quite splendid, and people stood still
and peeped in, and the sparrows hung by scores in the vine, and
chattered away at each other as well as they could, but it was not
about the old house, for they could not remembe