"You mustn't go thinking about that," said the old lady,

"we have a much happier and better lot than the people up there."

"So then I've got to die and float like foam on the sea, and not hear the noise of the waves and see the lovely flowers and the red sun! Can't I do anything at all to gain an everlasting soul?"

"No," said the old lady, "only if a human being loves you so dear that you were to him more than father or mother, and if with all his thoughts and affections he clung to you and made the priest lay his right hand in yours with the promise to be faithful to you here and for ever, then his soul would flow over into your body, and you too would have a share in the destiny of men. He would give you a soul and still keep his own. But that can never happen. The very thing that is considered beautiful here in the sea, I mean your fish tail, they think horrid up there on the earth; they have no notion of what's proper: up there people must needs have two clumsy props which they call legs to look nice."

The little mermaid sighed and looked sadly at her fish tail. "Let's be cheerful," said the old lady. "We'll jump and dance about for the three hundred years we have to live. It's long enough in all conscience; after that one can sleep it out all the pleasanter in one's grave. Tonight we're going to have a court ball."