Once the eldest took her to the churchyard, where the finest herbs were to be found, and let her eat and run about there.
The eldest went with the shoe into her room and wanted to try it on, and her mother stood by.
"Now spin me this flax," said she, "and when thou hast done it, thou shalt have my eldest son for a husband, even if thou art poor.
' She took the queen by the hand and led her to heaven, and showed her there her two eldest children, who smiled at her, and were playing with the ball of the world.
" It was the eldest of the children they called "The Cripple", he was called Hans otherwise.
" "You have a lovely voice," said one of the eldest ducks; "it must be great satisfaction to you to be able to give so much pleasure as you do.
The builder was a man of low origin, but possessing great pride; his eyes and forehead spoke of large intellect, and Waldemar Daa was fond of listening to him, and so was Waldemar's daughter Ida, the eldest, now about fifteen years old; and while he was building the ship for the father, he was building for himself a castle in the air, in which he and Ida were to live when they were married.
Then the eldest of the brothers dreamt a splendid dream.
(1858) "I MEAN to be somebody, and do something useful in the world," said the eldest of five brothers.
It was her eldest child, also a Little Christina, whom Ib had followed to her home, where she suffered hunger and poverty with her mother.
The children danced round the grave, and the eldest of the boys among them, a practical youngster of seven years, made the proposition that there should be an exhibition of Puggie's burial-place for all who lived in the lane; the price of admission was to be a trouser button, for every boy would be sure to have one, and each might also give one for a little girl.
But the eldest among them gathered carefully the faded flowers, on the stem of which was grouped together the seed, in the form of a white feathery coronal.
" "Any one can see that it is a grave-stone," said the eldest of the children; "the representation of an hour-glass and part of the figure of an angel can still be traced, but the inscription beneath is quite worn out, excepting the name 'Preben,' and a large 'S' close by it, and a little farther down the name of 'Martha' can be easily read.
"But I am the eldest!
" The eldest daughter wanted pearls and the second daughter wanted diamonds.
Up in the garret three little children were playing by the light of my beams; the eldest was perhaps six years old, the youngest certainly not more than two.
The eldest of the company—the water gourd hung at his girdle, and on his head was a little bag of unleavened bread—drew a square in the sand with his staff, and wrote in it a few words out of the Koran, and then the whole caravan passed over the consecrated spot.
"We brothers," said the eldest, "fly about as wild swans, so long as the sun is in the sky; but as soon as it sinks behind the hills, we recover our human shape.
Here stood a lonely inn, and close by it a number of crippled beggars had placed themselves; the brightest among them looked, to quote the words of Marryat, "like the eldest son of Famine who had just come of age.
As soon as the eldest was fifteen, she was allowed to rise to the surface of the ocean.