o kept
flying hither and thither post-haste.

Still, every one said it was a good law. It was true the children were
not quite so well next day; but then, what a fine moral effect! and
what a pleasant sight it was to see them all thoroughly happy for at
least one day in every year!

Now, just after the fourteenth birthday had been celebrated, Aigew was
called in to see to the princess. He gave her a little medicine, which
she took in the prettiest way, without jelly.

"That's a nice, good girl," said the grave doctor. "I have offered you
no birthday gift as yet; but it is in my power to give you anything you
wish. Say--what shall it be, sweet princess?"

"It is enough to give me your kind care," answered the princess.
"Everything else I have. The best part of all to me was the enjoyment
of the other children. Ah! how I wish I could have a birthday whenever
I choose!"

"Even that," said the doctor, "is possible," as he took something from
his bosom, smiling curiously to himself as he did so. "I give you this
little casket upon two conditions," said he. "One is that you are never
to mention the circumstance to a living soul; you are not even to speak
of it to me. The other I will tell you after I have explained the
nature of the gift. Inside this box are eighty crystal figures; each
one represents a birthday, and lies, as you see, in a separate
compartment. Begin at the right hand, and whenever you wish to have a
birthday, you have only to place one of these in your little mouth, and
it is here."

[Illustration: THE DOCTOR PRESENTS THE CASKET TO THE PRINCESS.]

The princess, trembling and faint from a strange perfume in the air,
took the box in her hand.

"But the other condition?"

"It is merely this: that no one but yourself ever tastes the contents
of the magical box. If any one should, the worst consequences would
follow; and, among others, all these birthdays, with all that they have
occasioned and all the presents that have been given in their honor,
will pass away and become as nothing. Remember this." And he was gone.

The princess examined her singular present with the most intense
interest. It looked wonderfully like a pill-box; but inside, lying in
the tiniest compartments, were marvelously small and beautiful figures
exactly like herself in miniature, except that, beginning at the right,
each one was a little older in appearance than the one preceding.

The next morning, before the rising of the