long to kiss the little yellow dandelion in the field.

And then some little children came tripping across the field. The
youngest laughed when they saw the dandelions and kissed them with
delight. The older children made wreaths and dainty chains of them. They
picked carefully those that had gone to seed, and tried to blow the
feathery down off with one breath, making joyous wishes.

"Do you see," said the sunbeam, "the beauty of the dandelion?"

"Only to children are they beautiful," said the proud apple blossom.

By and by an old woman came into the field. She gathered the roots of
the dandelions, out of which she made tea for the sick, and she sold
others for money to buy milk for the children.

"But beauty is better than all this," still said the proud little apple
blossom. Just then the princess came along. In her hand she carried
something that seemed like a beautiful flower. She covered it carefully
from the wind. What do you think it was? It was the feathery crown of
the dandelion. "See!" she said, "how beautiful it is! I will paint it in
a picture with the apple blossoms."

Then the sunbeam kissed the apple blossom, and as he stooped low to kiss
the dandelion the apple blossom blushed with shame.

Hans Christian Andersen [Adapted]