story that I am finding in it so well, I should say that the fire
needed more wood, for it seems almost out; see how the blackened sticks
are smouldering and smoking, with scarcely any bright flames at all.
The smoke is spreading like an ugly gray cloud over everything; the
trees and the flowers droop; the sky is dull and the grass is dingy;
the castle looks grim and heavy, and no longer bright and graceful; the
faces of the gods themselves grow pale and haggard; they feel that they
are suddenly older. They have not eaten the apples of youth to-day, and
nobody can get them but the one goddess who has gone. They know that
they will grow older every hour and will soon die if they do not get
her back, and the only way is to find the dwarf's treasure for the
giants.

"'Come quickly,' says the Father of the Gods, 'and let us get this
treasure; let us hasten down under the ground where the dwarfs live,
for we must have it to-night, when the giants come.'

"There, where the dirty yellow smoke is pouring out between the sticks
of wood at the top of the pile, I see a crevice in the rocks. The
Father of the Gods and the Fire God go down into it, and the smoke
comes thicker and blacker, and hides everything but those two, and I
see them climbing down and down over the rough, sharp rocks, toward the
caverns of the dwarfs, while the little tongues of flame shoot out at
them from the fissures, as if they were trying to catch and burn and
sting them, just as they shoot out from between the black, charred
sticks here before our eyes.

"It is a deep, dark cave that I see now, with little spots of light
here and there, like forges, and there is the sound of anvils. The
dwarfs live here, and they are all working hard, as they must now, for