e
little chin, and tilted it until she could look into the eyes that
dropped under her gaze "You have been crying," she said again, this
time in English, "crying because you are homesick. I wonder if it would
not be a good occupation for you to open all the bundles that I got this
afternoon. There is a saucepan in one, and a big spoon in the other, and
all sorts of good things in the others, so that we can make some
molasses candy here in my room, over the open fire. While it cooks you
can curl up in the big armchair and listen to a fairy tale in the
firelight. Would you like that, little one?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Joyce, ecstatically. "That's what they are doing at
home this minute, I am sure. We always make candy every afternoon in the
winter time."

Presently the saucepan was sitting on the coals, and Joyce's little pug
nose was rapturously sniffing the odor of bubbling molasses. "I know
what I'd like the story to be about," she said, as she stirred the
delicious mixture with the new spoon. "Make up something about the big
gate across the road, with the scissors on it."

Cousin Kate crossed the room, and sat down by the window, where she
could look out and see the top of it.

"Let me think for a few minutes," she said. "I have been very much
interested in that old gate myself."

She thought so long that the candy was done before she was ready to tell
the story; but while it cooled in plates outside on the window-sill, she
drew Joyce to a seat beside her in the chimney-corner. With her feet on
the fender, and the child's head on her shoulder, she began this story,
and the firelight dancing on the walls, showed a smile on Joyce's
contented little face.

CHAPTER II.

A NEW FAIRY TALE.

Once upon a time, on a far island of the sea, there lived a King with
seven sons. The three eldest were tall and dark, with eyes like eagles,
and hair like a crow's wing for blackness, and no princes in all the
land were so strong and fearless as they. The three youngest sons were
tall and fair, with eyes as blue as cornflowers, and locks like the
summer sun for brightness, and no princes in all the land were so brave
and beautiful as they.

But the middle son was little and lorn; he was neither dark nor fair; he
was neither handsome nor strong. So when the King saw that he never won
in the tournaments nor led in the boar hunts, nor sang to his lute among
the ladies of the court, he drew his royal robes around him, and
hence