gs out of Holberg's comedies,
and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered together,
and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she looked as
she were going to make a spring. "Croak! croak!" said she: "it is wet,
it is wet; there is such a pleasant death-like stillness in Soroe!"
She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak;" and now she was an old woman.
"One must dress according to the weather," said she. "It is wet, it is
wet. My town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck, and
by the neck one must get out again! In former times I had the finest
fish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the
bottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew, Greek,--Croak!" When she spoke it
sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one walked with great
boots over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform and so tiring that
little Tuk fell into a good sound sleep, which, by the bye, could not
do him any harm.

But even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was:
his little sister Augusta, she with the blue eyes and the fair curling
hair, was suddenly a tall, beautiful girl, and without having wings
was yet able to fly; and she now flew over Zealand--over the green
woods and the blue lakes.

"Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are
flying up from Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very
large! You will suffer neither hunger nor thirst! You will get on in
the world! You will be a rich and happy man! Your house will exalt
itself like King Waldemar's tower, and will be richly decorated with
marble statues, like that at Prastoe. You understand what I mean. Your
name shall circulate with renown all round the earth, like unto the
ship that was to have sailed from Corsor; and in Roeskilde"----

"Do not forget the diet!" said King Hroar.

"Then you will speak well and wisely, little Tukey; and when at last
you sink into your grave, you shall sleep as quietly"----

"As if I lay in Soroe," said Tuk, awaking. It was bright day, and he
was now quite unable to call to mind his dream; that, however, was not
at all necessary, for one may not know what the future will bring.

And out of bed he jumped, and read in his book, and now all at once he
knew his whole lesson. And the old washerwoman popped her head in at
the door, nodded to him friendly, and said, "Thanks, many thanks, my
good child, for your help! May the good ever-loving God fulfil your
lov