the white walls to the prettiest
paper-hangings, to rich forests, to everything that they may wish for.
They know it not!"

For the rest, the lamp stood in a corner, where it always met the eye,
and it was neat and well scoured; folks certainly said it was an old
piece of rubbish; but the old man and his wife didn't care about that,
they were fond of the lamp.

One day it was the old watchman's birth day; the old woman came up to
the lamp, smiled, and said, "I will illuminate for him," and the
lamp's cowl creaked, for it thought, "They will now be enlightened!"
But she put in train oil, and no wax candle; it burnt the whole
evening; but now it knew that the gift which the stars had given it,
the best gift of all, was a dead treasure for this life. It then
dreamt--and when one has such abilities, one can surely dream,--that
the old folks were dead, and that it had come to an ironfounder's to
be cast anew; it was in as much anxiety as when it had to go to the
town-hall to be examined by the authorities; but although it had the
power to fall to pieces in rust and dust, when it wished it, yet it
did not do it; and so it came into the furnace and was re-cast as a
pretty iron candlestick, in which any one might set a wax candle. It
had the form of an angel, bearing a nosegay, and in the centre of the
nosegay they put a wax taper and it was placed on a green
writing-table; and the room was so snug and comfortable: there hung
beautiful pictures--there stood many books; it was at a poet's, and
everything that he wrote, unveiled itself round about: the room became
a deep, dark forest,--a sun-lit meadow where the stork stalked about;
and a ship's deck high aloft on the swelling sea!

"What power I have!" said the old lamp, as it awoke. "I almost long to
be re-cast;--but no, it must not be as long as the old folks live.
They are fond of me for the sake of my person. I am to them as a
child, and they have scoured me, and they have given me train oil.
After all, I am as well off as 'The Congress,'--which is something so
very grand."

From that time it had more inward peace, which was merited by the old
street-lamp.

------------

THE DREAM OF LITTLE TUK.

Ah! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not Tuk, but
that was what he called himself before he could speak plain: he meant
it for Charles, and it is all well enough if one do but know it. He
had now to take care of his little sister Augusta, who was much