e father and
mother I ever knew were the two great Eagles."

"Ah, my child! my child!" cried the Milkwoman, "I was that poor woman;
the Eagles flew away with my eldest girl when she was only a year old.
Have I found you after these many years?"

And she ran and called all her children, and her husband, to tell them
the wonderful news.

And there was great rejoicing among them all.

When they were a little calmer, her mother said to Surya Bai, "Tell
us, dear daughter, how your life has been spent since first we lost
you." And Surya Bai went on:

"The old Eagles took me away to their home, and there I lived happily
many years. They loved to bring me all the beautiful things they could
find, and at last one day they both went to fetch me a diamond ring
from the Red Sea; but while they were gone the fire went out in the
nest: so I went to an old woman's hut, and got her to give me some
fire; and next day (I don't know how it was), as I was opening the
outer door of the cage, a sharp thing, that was sticking in it, ran
into my hand and I fell down senseless.

"I don't know how long I lay there, but when I came to myself, I found
the Eagles must have come back, and thought me dead, and gone away,
for the diamond ring was on my little finger; a great many people were
watching over me, and amongst them was a Rajah, who asked me to go
home with him and be his wife, and he brought me to this place, and I
was his Ranee.

"But his other wife, the first Ranee, hated me (for she was jealous),
and desired to kill me; and one day she accomplished her purpose by
pushing me into the tank, for I was young and foolish, and disregarded
the warnings of my faithful old attendant, who begged me not to go
near the place. Ah! if I had only listened to her words I might have
been happy still."

At these words the old attendant, who had been sitting in the
background, rushed forward and kissed Surya Bai's feet, crying; "Ah,
my lady! my lady! have I found you at last!" and, without staying to
hear more, she ran back to the palace to tell the Rajah the glad news.

Then Surya Bai told her parents how she had not wholly died in the
tank, but become a sunflower; and how the first Ranee; seeing how fond
the Rajah was of the plant, had caused it to be thrown away; and then
how she had risen from the ashes of the sunflower, in the form of a
mango tree; and how when the tree blossomed all her spirit went into
the little mango flower, and she en