“If you take a rose from me You will then a princess be.”
She looked up and saw an aster growing in a green flower-pot which she had never seen before; and on one of the flowers was perched a tiny fairy.
“And you can have everything you can wish for except one thing. If you wish for that you will lose the rose.”
“And what is that?” asked Lilla, taking the rose which the fairy offered her.
“Oh, soap bubbles? Of course, I shall not wish for them!” said Lilla.
“Whenever you want anything,” said the fairy, “just say:
“Rose, Rose, bring to me Everything I wish to see.”
“You will be a princess as long as you keep the rose. But you must never ask for soap bubbles. Good-by; now I must go back to my home.”
So the fairy went to Fairyland, and Lilla went home; but no one knew her, because she was now a princess with long hair and a golden crown.
“I will go up to the castle on the hill,” thought Lilla; “princesses go there to stay.”
At the castle they were expecting a princess, so they thought Lilla must be the one who was coming, and they gave her a grand room, all hung with velvet curtains, to sleep in. On the table was a silver box which Lilla thought just right to keep her rose in.
“Now, I shall try what I can do with my rose,” thought Lilla. So she thought of a box of toys, and said:
“Rose, Rose, bring to me Everything I wish to see.”
Scarcely had she spoken when a maid came to say that a box had come for her.
When the box was opened, Lilla saw so many pretty things that she thought she would like a Christmas tree to hang them on, and again she said:
“Rose, Rose, bring to me Everything I wish to see.”
And in a few minutes a Christmas tree arrived hung all over with gold and silver drops, and colored lights, and bonbons, and still more bonbons, and gifts of all kinds.
The people at the castle had never seen such a beautiful Christmas tree, and they were delighted with the gifts which Lilla divided among them.
Day after day Lilla asked her rose for something new, and every day more and more beautiful things came, till not only her own room, but the whole castle was full of them.
She gave them away to every one, for she soon grew tired of them.
[Illustration: ON ONE OF THE FLOWERS WAS PERCHED A TINY FAIRY]