t is what makes you unhappy, pray
don't think of it any more. No one ever eats anything here. Indeed, I
can not imagine anything more absurd."

Then, being at heart a very kind and obliging little person, he came
close to the princess, and said:

"I am sorry for you--indeed I am, but don't give way to tears. They
won't turn stones into bread. I beseech you, my dear Princess Bebe, to
look at our fruit trees and flowers. They are considered very beautiful.
I have no doubt but the sight of them will help you to bear this strange
feeling which you call hunger." Then, kissing the princess's hand, he
added: "I must leave you now and go to the gate. Amuse yourself in the
garden, my dear princess, till I return."

It was a wondrously beautiful garden, as any one could see, but somehow
the Princess Bebe did not get much comfort from it.

"Oh, if those were only real apples!" she sighed, for there were what
seemed to be apple-trees in great abundance. But the apples were of
malachite--a hard opaque stone of two shades of green--and when she
tried to taste the grapes, she found they were only purple amethysts
arranged in graceful clusters. The cherries were all of stone, instead
of having a stone in the middle; and the plums were just as bad and just
as beautiful--the cherries were deep red rubies, and the plums were made
of chrysoprase. Nothing but hard glittering gems wherever she turned her
eyes.

The poor princess seemed likely to die of starvation in spite of her
riches, but she thought she would be almost willing to endure hunger if
she could only have a rose that would smell like the sweet-brier roses
which grew in Hollowbush in her own little garden. For what she had at
first taken to be roses were, after all, nothing but pink coral
cunningly carved, the daffodils were of amber, and the forget-me-nots
were one and all made of the pale blue turquoise.

"It is very certain that I must die," said the princess, sadly, and she
covered her face with her hands, crying bitterly, and praying that if
death must come to her, it might come quickly.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

JOE AND BLINKY.

Blinky was a poor dirty little puppy whom somebody had lost, and
somebody else had stolen, and whose miserable little life was a burden
to himself until Joe found him. It happened one warm day in July that
Joe, whose bright eyes were always pretty wide open, saw a group of
youngsters eagerly clustering about an object which appeared t