in these days. And
there were smaller boxes to look at, and the piano was opened, and
inside the lid were painted landscapes. But when the old man played, the
piano sounded quite out of tune. Then he looked at the picture he had
bought at the broker's, and his eyes sparkled brightly as he nodded at
it and said, "Ah, she could sing that tune."

"I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!" cried the tin soldier as
loud as he could, and threw himself down on the floor. Where could he
have fallen? The old man searched, and the little boy searched, but he
was gone and could not be found. "I shall find him again," said the old
man. But he did not find him; the tin soldier had fallen through a crack
between the boards and lay there now as in an open grave.

The day went by, and the little boy returned home; the week passed, and
many more weeks. It was winter, and the windows were quite frozen, so
that the little boy was obliged to breathe on the panes and rub a hole
to peep through at the old house. Snowdrifts were lying in all the
scrolls and on the inscriptions, and the steps were covered with snow as
if no one were at home. And indeed nobody was at home, for the old man
was dead.

In the evening the old man was to be taken to the country to be buried
there in his own grave; so they carried him away. No one followed him,
for all his friends were dead, and the little boy kissed his hand to his
old friend as he saw him borne away.

A few days after, there was an auction at the old house, and from his
window the little boy saw the people carrying away the pictures of old
knights and ladies, the flowerpots with the long ears, the old chairs,
and the cupboards. Some were taken one way, some another. _Her_
portrait, which had been bought at the picture dealer's, went back again
to his shop, and there it remained, for no one seemed to know her or to
care for the old picture.

In the spring they began to pull the house itself down; people called it
complete rubbish. From the street could be seen the room in which the
walls were covered with leather, ragged and torn, and the green in the
balcony hung straggling over the beams; they pulled it down quickly, for
it looked ready to fall, and at last it was cleared away altogether.
"What a good riddance," said the neighbors' houses.

Afterward a fine new house was built, farther back from the road. It had
lofty windows and smooth walls, but in front, on the spot where the old
ho