beautiful perfume. And the tin soldier felt as if he was 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, 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 quite near to them; no one but the tin
soldier saw that it came from a rag of the leather which hung in tatters; it
had lost all its gilding, and looked like wet earth, but it had an opinion, and
it spoke it thus:-
“Gilding will fade in damp weather,
To endure, there is nothing like leather.”
But the tin soldier did not believe any such thing.
