THE BOX OF DREAMS
stone was there—emeralds and pearls and fiery opals, glowing rubies and sea-blue sapphires, besides a great many strange stones whose names you have never heard.
Gretel gasped.
She sat on the floor beside the box, and stared and stared. She could hardly believe that the glittering things were real, and she could not believe at all that they belonged to her. At first she expected every minute that they would disappear, and she was afraid to touch them; but presently she took courage and lifted them out of the box one by one. Then she took them to the light, and they looked still more beautiful than before.
As Gretel sat on the floor near the window, with the many-coloured jewels glimmering and shimmering in her lap, she came gradually to understand that when her mother gave her the box of Dreams she gave her great riches.
Gretel lived to be very old, but she never lost her jewels. She was able now to show them to all the world without any danger of their flying away, and as time went on the people flocked to see her and her jewels. Eitel admired them as much as any one, but he could never be persuaded that the fluffy pink things he had once seen had really turned into these shining and wonderful stones.
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