try of Nonamia, there lived an
absent-minded magician. It is not usual, of course, for a magician to
be absent-minded; but then, if it were usual it would not have happened
in Nonamia. Nobody knew very much about this particular magician, for
he lived in his castle in the air, and it is not easy to visit any one
who lives in the air. He did not want to be visited, however; visitors
always meant conversation, and he could not endure conversation. This,
by the way, was not surprising, for he was so absent-minded that he
always forgot the end of his sentence before he was half-way through
the beginning of it; and as for his visitors' remarks--well, if he had
had any visitors, he would never have heard their remarks at all. So,
when some one did call on him, one day,--and that was when he had been
living in his castle in the air for seven hundred and seventy-seven
years and had almost forgotten who he was and why he was there,--the
magician was so astonished that he could not think of anything to say.

"How did you get here?" he asked at last; for even an absent-minded
magician cannot remain altogether silent, when he looks out of his
castle in the air and sees a Princess in a gold and silver frock, with
a bright little crown on her head, floating about on a soft white cloud.

"Well, I just came, that's all," answered the Princess, with a
particularly friendly smile. "You see, I have never been able to find
my own castle in the air, so when the West Wind told me about yours I
asked him to blow me here. May I come in and see what it is like?"

"Certainly not," said the magician, hastily. "It is not like anything;
and even if it were, I should not let you come in. Don't you know
that, if you were to enter another person's castle in the air, it would
vanish away like a puff of smoke?"

"Oh, dear!" sighed the Princess. "I did so want to know what a real
castle in the air was like. I wonder if yours is at all like mine!"

"Tell me about yours," said the magician. "I may be able to help you
to find it." Of course, he only said this in order to prevent her from
coming inside his own castle. At the same time, a little conversation
with a friendly Princess in a gold and silver gown is not at all
unpleasant, when one has lived in a castle in the air for seven hundred
and seventy-seven years.

"My castle in the air is much bigger than yours," she explained. "It
has ever so many rooms in it,--a large room to laugh i