y in its arms and
kissed his hair softly.

"So like his grandfather," she murmured, "so like! so like!--the very
hands, the very feet--so strong, so shapely." And both in turn felt the
touch of the soft old lips. "And thou, too, small maiden," she continued
kindly, "welcome to one who has never yet let it be said in her hearing
that God made women weaker than man! Thou shalt learn here to be proud
thou wast born a girl. And you also, Nurse! Bring cooling sherbets,
slaves, while she tells me all that has happened."

Then she sat and listened while Head-nurse told the tale of what had
happened, and her faded, gay, old face flashed and sparkled and grew
grave by turns.

"But where is Tumbu?" she interrupted, "and where is Down? Bring them
hither, slaves! Lo! I love all animals, as my dear brother did!"

And she laughed over their doings, and wept over Old Faithful's death,
while Bija and Mirak sat cuddled up close beside her, listening also and
enjoying the tale of their own adventures as if they had happened to
other children!

"Surely," she said softly when Head-nurse ended, "my dearest brother--on
whom be peace--must have protected them! Lo! Mirak! and Bija--for I
shall call you naught else since they are sweet kindly names, better
than fine sounding titles--this very afternoon ye shall come with me to
the garden he loved, and where his earthly form lies at rest, and lay
flowers on his grave for thanks. Since he loved flowers as he loved
everything."

So that evening, about an hour before sunset time, they were all carried
in litters to the Garden of the New Year, about a mile beyond the city.
It was a most peaceful, lovely spot, right up on the hillside with a
splendid view from it of valley and mountain and river. A fresh bubbling
spring ran through it, and beneath the Judas trees, whose leafless
branches were flushed with pink blossoms, stretched great carpets of
spring flowers.

"Pluck him yonder tulips, Mirak," said Dearest-Lady with a smile. "He
loved to count their kinds and those--as he wrote--are 'yellow, double,
and scented like a rose'!"

And the boy who was to grow to be a greater man even than his
grandfather, though he could scarcely be a more lovable one, plucked a
posy of the tulips and laid them on the plain marble slab which bore
nothing but the words, "Heaven is the eternal home of the Emperor
Babar." And when Bija, with many a little feminine ceremonial, had
deposited her nosegay of sweet