ted, but
not corrupt; perhaps he will repent and come back to us a good king."

When the beast heard this, it touched him so much that he stopped
tearing at his chains, and became gentle. He let his keepers lead him
away to the royal menagerie without hurting them.

Life was very terrible to the prince, now, but he began to see that he
had brought all his sorrow on himself, and he tried to bear it
patiently. The worst to bear was the cruelty of the keeper. At last, one
night, this keeper was in great danger; a tiger got loose, and attacked
him. "Good enough! Let him die!" thought Prince Cherry. But when he saw
how helpless the keeper was, he repented, and sprang to help. He killed
the tiger and saved the keeper's life.

As he crouched at the keeper's feet, a voice said, "Good actions never
go unrewarded!" And the terrible monster was changed into a pretty
little white dog.

The keeper carried the beautiful little dog to the court and told the
story, and from then on, Cherry was carefully treated, and had the best
of everything. But in order to keep the little dog from growing, the
queen ordered that he should be fed very little, and that was pretty
hard for the poor prince. He was often half starved, although so much
petted.

One day he had carried his crust of bread to a retired spot in the
palace woods, where he loved to be, when he saw a poor old woman hunting
for roots, and seeming almost starved.

"Poor thing," he thought, "she is even more hungry than I"; and he ran
up and dropped the crust at her feet.

The woman ate it, and seemed greatly refreshed.

Cherry was glad of that, and he was running happily back to his kennel
when he heard cries of distress, and suddenly he saw some rough men
dragging along a young girl, who was weeping and crying for help. What
was his horror to see that the young girl was Zelia! Oh, how he wished
he were the monster once more, so that he could kill the men and rescue
her! But he could do nothing except bark, and bite at the heels of the
wicked men. That did not stop them; they drove him off, with blows, and
carried Zelia into a palace in the wood.

Poor Cherry crouched by the steps, and watched. His heart was full of
pity and rage. But suddenly he thought, "I was as bad as these men; I
myself put Zelia in prison, and would have treated her worse still, if I
had not been prevented." The thought made him so sorry and ashamed that
he repented bitterly the evil he had done.