ce in the pale yellow cushions, and her
whole beautiful body trembled and was wrung with her sobs.

Suddenly she was aware that some one entered the little hall and stood
beside her. She dared not look up at first; she was unstrung and
wretched in her grief and anger, and it was the strong, firm tread of a
man. The footsteps ceased, and the intruder, whoever he might be, was
standing still; she took courage and looked quickly up. It was the king
himself. Indeed, she might have known that no other man would dare to
penetrate into the recesses of the garden set apart for the ladies of
the palace.

Darius stood quietly gazing at her with an expression of doubt and
curiosity, that was almost amusing, on his stern, dark face. Nehushta
was frightened, and sprang to her feet with the graceful quickness of a
startled deer. She was indolent by nature, but as swift as light when
she was roused by fear or excitement.

"Are you so unhappy in my palace?" asked Darius gently. "Why are you
weeping? Who has hurt you?"

Nehushta turned her face away and dashed the tears from her eyes, while
her cheeks flushed hotly.

"I am not weeping--no one--has hurt me," she answered, in a voice broken
rather by embarrassment and annoyance, than by the sorrow she had nearly
forgotten in her sudden astonishment at being face to face with the
king.

Darius smiled, and almost laughed, as he stroked his thick beard with
his broad brown hand.

"Princess," he said, "will you sit down again? I will deliver you a
discourse upon the extreme folly of ever telling"--he hesitated--"of
saying anything which is not precisely true."

There was something so simple and honest in his manner of speaking, that
Nehushta almost smiled through her half-dried tears as she sat upon the
cushions at the king's feet. He himself sat down upon the broad marble
seat that ran round the eight-sided little building, and composing his
face to a serious expression, that was more than half-assumed, began to
deliver his lecture.

"I take it for granted that when one tells a lie, he expects to be
believed. There must, then, be some thing or circumstance which can help
to make his lies credible. Now, my dear princess, in the present
instance, while I was looking you in the face and counting the tears
upon your very beautiful cheeks, you deliberately told me that you were
not weeping. There was, therefore, not even the shadow of a thing, or
circumstance which could make what you