it. Then the leaves, which are its fingers, stung him so sharply that he has
never ventured to touch a nettle since.”
“Oh how funny!” said Ida, and she laughed.
“How can anyone put such notions into a child’s head?” said a tiresome
lawyer, who had come to pay a visit, and sat on the sofa. He did not like the
student, and would grumble when he saw him cutting out droll or amusing
pictures. Sometimes it would be a man hanging on a gibbet and holding a
heart in his hand as if he had been stealing hearts. Sometimes it was an old
witch riding through the air on a broom and carrying her husband on her
nose. But the lawyer did not like such jokes, and he would say as he had
just said, “How can anyone put such nonsense into a child’s head! what
absurd fancies there are!”
But to little Ida, all these stories which the student told her about the
flowers, seemed very droll, and she thought over them a great deal. The
flowers did hang their heads, because they had been dancing all night, and
were very tired, and most likely they were ill. Then she took them into the
room where a number of toys lay on a pretty little table, and the whole of
the table drawer besides was full of beautiful things. Her doll Sophy lay in
the doll’s bed asleep, and little Ida said to her, “You must really get up
Sophy, and be content to lie in the drawer to-night; the poor flowers are ill,
and they must lie in your bed, then perhaps they will get well again.” So she
took the doll out, who looked quite cross, and said not a single word, for she
was angry at being turned out of her bed. Ida placed the flowers in the doll’s
bed, and drew the quilt over them. Then she told them to lie quite still and
be good, while she made some tea for them, so that they might be quite well
and able to get up the next morning. And she drew the curtains close round
the little bed, so that the sun might not shine in their eyes. During the whole
evening she could not help thinking of what the student had told her. And
before she went to bed herself, she was obliged to peep behind the curtains
into the garden where all her mother’s beautiful flowers grew, hyacinths and
tulips, and many others. Then she whispered to them quite softly, “I know
you are going to a ball to-night.” But the flowers appeared as if they did not
