use really stood, a little garden was planted, and wild vines grew up
over the neighboring walls. In front of the garden were large iron
railings and a great gate which looked very stately. People used to stop
and peep through the railings. The sparrows assembled in dozens upon the
wild vines and chattered all together as loud as they could, but not
about the old house. None of them could remember it, for many years had
passed by; so many, indeed, that the little boy was now a man, and a
really good man too, and his parents were very proud of him. He had just
married and had come with his young wife to reside in the new house with
the garden in front of it, and now he stood there by her side while she
planted a field flower that she thought very pretty. She was planting it
herself with her little hands and pressing down the earth with her
fingers. "Oh, dear, what was that?" she exclaimed as something pricked
her. Out of the soft earth something was sticking up.

It was--only think!--it was really the tin soldier, the very same which
had been lost up in the old man's room and had been hidden among old
wood and rubbish for a long time till it sank into the earth, where it
must have been for many years. And the young wife wiped the soldier,
first with a green leaf and then with her fine pocket handkerchief, that
smelt of a beautiful perfume. And the tin soldier felt as if he were
recovering from a fainting fit.

"Let me see him," said the young man, and then he smiled and shook his
head and said, "It can scarcely be the same, but it reminds me of
something that happened to one of my tin soldiers when I was a little
boy." And then he told his wife about the old house and the old man and
of the tin soldier which he had sent across because he thought the old
man was lonely. And he related the story so clearly that tears came into
the eyes of the young wife for the old house and the old man.

"It is very likely that this is really the same soldier," said she, "and
I will take care of him and always remember what you have told me; but
some day you must show me the old man's grave."

"I don't know where it is," he replied; "no one knows. All his friends
are dead. No one took care of him or tended his grave, and I was only a
little boy."

"Oh, how dreadfully lonely he must have been," said she.

"Yes, terribly lonely," cried the tin soldier; "still it is delightful
not to be forgotten."

"Delightful indeed!" cried a voice