the
magician. "People who live in castles in the air are never to be
found, unless they have grown tired of living in them."

"Oho!" chuckled the stranger. "Are _you_ tired of living in yours,
then?"

The absent-minded magician tried to determine whether he should be
angry or not, when the stranger said this; but, by the time he had made
up his mind to be angry, he had forgotten what there was to be angry
about, and while he was thinking about it, the man in the dusty brown
cloak walked away and left him.

Evidently, it was not very long before the Princess grew tired of
living in her castle in the air, for the very next day, as the
traveller was once more resting on the large stone by the side of the
road, down she came, castle and all, and stopped just in front of him.
Truly, there is no end to the wonderful things that happen in Nonamia!

"Hullo!" said the traveller, smiling. "What is it like inside your
castle?"

"It is not half so nice as I expected to find it," said the Princess,
popping her head out of the top window. "You see, there is no one to
play with; and even if your castle is the most beautiful castle in the
world, it is always dull when there is no one to play with, isn't it?"

"I don't know," answered the stranger; "I have never had any one to
play with. What else is wrong with your castle?"

"Well," continued the Princess, "it is all very well to have a castle
that is packed with happiness; but, when it is packed so tight that you
cannot get it out without some one to help you, it is not much good, is
it?"

"I don't know," answered the stranger; "my happiness has never been
packed so tight as all that. Have you anything else to complain of?"

"A great many things," said the Princess. "It is all that stupid
magician's fault. When I said, 'a small room to cry in,' I did n't
really mean a room to _cry_ in, did I? But every way I turn, there is
always the room to cry in, staring me in the face! I am sure there is
something seriously wrong with my castle in the air."

"No doubt about it," said the traveller; "and it is clearly the
magician's fault."

"When you came to live in your castle in the air," continued the
Princess, plaintively, "did you find that it was very different from
the one you had built?"

The traveller in the dusty brown cloak burst out laughing.

"I have no time to build castles in the air," he said. "I build real
houses for other people to live in, people