must sleep in your bed. Then perhaps they may be well by to-morrow.”
So she took the doll out of bed; but the good lady did not say a single word, she only made a wry face at being obliged to leave her bed for the sake of the old flowers.
Ida laid the withered flowers in her doll’s bed, covered them up with the counterpane, tucked them in very nicely, and told them to lie quite still, and in the meantime she would make some tea for them to drink, that they might be quite well by to-morrow morning. And she drew the curtains close all round the bed, so that the sun might not shine in their eyes.
The whole evening she kept on thinking of what she had heard, and just before going to bed she ran to the window where her mother’s tulips and hyacinths were standing, and she whispered quite softly to them, “I know very well that you are going to the ball to-night.” But the flowers seemed as if they heard nothing, and moved
