"Oh, Eitel," cried Gretel, sobbing, "I have lost my Dreams—so many of them—so many of them!"
"Well," said Eitel, "I don't see that there's much to cry about. They were only pink fluff after all! I wouldn't cry about pink fluff if I were you!"
So Eitel went out of the house whistling, and thinking that girls were sometimes very silly; while Gretel carried her box upstairs, crying, and thinking that boys were often very unkind. As soon as she was in her room she opened her box again, and found to her great joy that it was still half full of beautiful Dreams.
She soon made friends with Eitel again, but she never spoke to him any more about her box of Dreams.
As the years went by Gretel became first a big girl and then a grown-up woman, and still she had to work for her living. She lived in a good many different places, sometimes with nice people and sometimes with people who were not kind to her; but wherever she lived she had to scrub and sweep, and get up early and go to bed late. She still kept her box of Dreams safely in her little trunk, hidden under her Sunday frock. Since the time that she had lost so many of her Dreams she had never opened the box except when she was alone. She was afraid of losing some more; and, besides, she did not like it when Eitel laughed at her and called her pretty Dreams "nothing but pink fluff." So she made up her mind to wait till her hair was really grey.
It seemed to her sometimes that this would never happen! Her hair was browner than other people's, she thought, and was not going to turn grey at all. But though the time seemed so long to her, she was as a matter of fact still a young woman when she discovered that there were two grey hairs growing among the brown ones. She was combing her hair at the time, and the moment she saw the grey hairs she dropped the comb, and clapping her hands for joy ran quickly to get her box of Dreams out of her little trunk. She was so much excited that her trembling fingers could hardly undo the fastenings of the box.
When the box was at last open she was still more excited. Her mother had promised that she should be surprised, but she had not expected such a strange and delightful and altogether wonderful surprise as this! You could never guess what had happened! Her pretty rosy Dreams had all turned into jewels more splendid than any you ever saw or heard about! Every kind of precious 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.