storm; nor could it be theirs to see this Elysium of the deep, for when
the ship sank they were drowned, and only reached the Merman's palace in
death. When the elder sisters rose up in this manner, arm-in-arm, in the
evening, the youngest remained behind quite alone, looking after them as
if she must weep; but mermaids have no tears, and so they suffer all the
more.

'Oh! if I were only fifteen!' she said, 'I know how fond I shall be of
the world above, and of the mortals who dwell there.'

At last her fifteenth birthday came.

'Now we shall have you off our hands,' said her grandmother, the old
queen-dowager. 'Come now, let me adorn you like your other sisters!' and
she put a wreath of white lilies round her hair, but every petal of the
flowers was half a pearl; then the old queen had eight oysters fixed on
to the princess's tail to show her high rank.

'But it hurts so!' said the little mermaid.

'You must endure the pain for the sake of the finery!' said her
grandmother.

But oh! how gladly would she have shaken off all this splendour, and
laid aside the heavy wreath. Her red flowers in her garden suited her
much better, but she did not dare to make any alteration. 'Good-bye,'
she said, and mounted as lightly and airily as a bubble through the
water.

The sun had just set when her head rose above the water, but the clouds