'Yes,' continued the dryad, 'the birds sing up above in the branches, and talk to each other about the beautiful fields they have visited in foreign lands; and on one of the withered boughs a stork has built his nest,—it is beautifully arranged, and besides it is pleasant to hear a little about the land of the pyramids.
The husband kissed her hand, which now lay like a withered leaf, but which a short time before had been diligently employed in deeds of love for them all.
They seem like mere withered leaves lying on the ground.
Nobody shed a tear over him; his face was covered over with a white cloth, under his head they had placed a large thick book, the leaves of which consisted of folded sheets of blotting-paper, and withered flowers lay between them; it was the herbarium which he had gathered in various places and was to be buried with him, according to his own wish.
" Under a glass beneath the picture hung a nosegay of withered flowers, which were no doubt half a century old too, at least they appeared so.
She plucks the withered leaf from the balsam, and looks at the grass-covered rampart, on which many children are playing.
"I wonder why grandmother looks at the withered flower in the old book that way?
they were all withered and yellow, and it lay in a corner amongst weeds and nettles.
Close by grew a slender, beautiful, rose-bush, but some wicked hand had broken the stem, and the half-opened rosebuds hung faded and withered on the trailing branches.
Then, he caught sight of a messy flower hanging on a leaf with a withered bean chaff.
"It was an old withered stem.
But the elf slipped out of the withered leaf, placed himself by the ear of the sleeping girl, and told her, as in a dream, of the horrid murder; described the place where her brother had slain her lover, and buried his body; and told her of the linden-tree, in full blossom, that stood close by.
It was so still that she could hear the sound of her own footsteps, as well as the rustling of every withered leaf which she crushed under her feet.
" The others were either blind, or had withered legs, which obliged them to creep about on their hands and knees, or they had shrivelled arms and hands without fingers.
It is with the clever or wonderful things we say or hear in dreams, as with the gold which comes from under the earth, it is rich and beautiful when we possess it, but when seen in a true light it is but as stones and withered leaves.
All the birds who had sung to her so sweetly were flown away, and the trees and the flowers had withered.
MY poor flowers are quite dead," said little Ida, "they were so pretty yesterday evening, and now all the leaves are hanging down quite withered.
