'You must not be thinking about that,' said the grandmother; 'we are
much better off and happier than human beings.'

'Then I shall have to die and to float as foam on the water, and never
hear the music of the waves or see the beautiful flowers or the red sun!
Is there nothing I can do to gain an immortal soul?'

'No,' said the grandmother; 'only if a human being so loved you that you
were more to him than father or mother, if all his thoughts and all his
love were so centred in you that he would let the priest join your hands
and would vow to be faithful to you here, and to all eternity; then your
body would become infused with his soul. Thus, and only thus, could you
gain a share in the felicity of mankind. He would give you a soul while
yet keeping his own. But that can never happen! That which is your
greatest beauty in the sea, your fish's tail, is thought hideous up on
earth, so little do they understand about it; to be pretty there you
must have two clumsy supports which they call legs!'

Then the little mermaid sighed and looked sadly at her fish's tail.

'Let us be happy,' said the grandmother; 'we will hop and skip during
our three hundred years of life; it is surely a long enough time; and
after it is over we shall rest all the better in our graves. There is to
be a court ball to-night.'

This was a much more splendid affair than we ever see on earth. The
walls and the ceiling of the great ballroom were of thick but
transparent glass. Several hundreds of colossal mussel shells, rose red
and grass green, were ranged in order round the sides holding blue
lights, which illuminated the whole room and shone through the walls, so