And as he spoke , he bowed his head and looked down into the water . Reflected in the still pool he saw many white shapes , with long necks and golden bills , and , without thinking , he looked for the dull grey body and the awkward skinny neck . But no such thing was there . Instead , he beheld beneath him a beautiful white swan ! ` The new one is the best of all , ' said the children when they came down to feed the swans with biscuit and cake before going to bed . ` His feathers are whiter and his beak more golden than the rest . ' And when he heard that , the duckling thought that it was worth while having undergone all the persecution and loneliness that he had passed through , as otherwise he would never have known what it was to be really happy . The Two Caskets -LSB- Hans Andersen . -RSB- Far , far away , in the midst of a pine forest , there lived a woman who had both a daughter and a stepdaughter . Ever since her own daughter was born the mother had given her all that she cried for , so she grew up to be as cross and disagreeable as she was ugly . Her stepsister , on the other hand , had spent her childhood in working hard to keep house for her father , who died soon after his second marriage ; and she was as much beloved by the neighbours for her goodness and industry as she was for her beauty . As the years went on , the difference between the two girls grew more marked , and the old woman treated her stepdaughter worse than ever , and was always on the watch for some pretext for beating her , or depriving her of her food . Anything , however foolish , was good enough for this , and one day , when she could think of nothing better , she set both the girls to spin while sitting on the low wall of the well . ` And you had better mind what you do , ' said she , ` for the one whose thread breaks first shall be thrown to the bottom . ' But of course she took good care that her own daughter 's flax was fine and strong , while the stepsister had only some coarse stuff , which no one would have thought of using . As might be expected , in a very little while the poor girl 's thread snapped , and the old woman , who had been watching from behind a door , seized her stepdaughter by her shoulders , and threw her into the well . ` That is an end of you ! ' she said . But she was wrong , for it was only the beginning . Down , down , down went the girl -- it seemed as if the well must reach to the very middle of the earth ; but at last her feet touched the ground , and she found herself in a field more beautiful than even the summer pastures of her native mountains .
Trees waved in the soft breeze , and flowers XXXXX the brightest colours danced in the grass .
as down for into of on since so than without