or the first time the children remembered to look at one another.

Christine was the first to speak, and it was with a cry of great
delight she turned to Ridgwell--

"Oh, Ridgie, you are lovely," said Christine.

"Course he is," said the Lion.

"I don't know about that," said Ridgwell hesitatingly. "I think you
have made a mistake in the excitement."

"I've not," insisted Christine; "why, you look like a beautiful little
Prince."

Here Ridgwell, who, overcome with modesty at these tributes, had been
examining his jewelled shoe-buckles with downcast eyes, looked up at
his sister.

"Well, how about you?" exclaimed Ridgwell. "Why, you look like a
lovely fairy queen----"

"Course she does," said the Lion.

"Don't be silly, Ridgie," said Christine, severely.

"I'm not," asserted Ridgwell. "I've never seen you look like that.
Perhaps," added Ridgwell, "these glittering orders we wear round our
necks have something to do with it."

"You're right," said the Lion, "the priceless Order of Great
Imagination enables you to see everything that is beautiful as it
really is, and, of course, everything here is beautiful, so," added the
Lion logically, "why should you both be different from anything else?"

The Lion beckoned to one of the Dolphins.

"Here," said the Lion, as the Dolphin approached them, "hold up your
burnished golden tray and let the boy see himself."

The Dolphin held up the polished tray and Ridgwell looked into it
wonderingly.

"My goodness," said the Lion, "I thought girls were vain, but boys are
worse!"

"That _can't_ be me," said Ridgwell.

"Well, it isn't me," grumbled the Lion, "that's certain."

Christine peeped over the shoulder of Ridgwell's golden tunic.

"It's like us," said Christine, "but yet it isn't us at all."

"That is what people always say when they see their own photographs for
the first time," observed the Lion wisely. "Ha!" broke off the Lion,
"here come the dogs."

"Have you placed the two long troughs at the far end for them?"
demanded the Lion.

"Yes," chorussed the little lions.

"What have you filled them with?" questioned the Lion.

"Finest mutton and chicken bones in one," laughed Carry-on-Merry,
"water in the other."

"Have you remembered their special strip of comfortable carpet?" asked
the Lion anxiously.

"It's there," grinned Carry-on-Merry.

"Why are the stray dogs to have a strip of special comfortable carpet?"
asked Christine.

"Because th