was sitting in the shade, while other
men waited on them.

"What ails these people?" he inquired of one who was looking on, for he
observed a peculiar air of weariness and dulness in their faces. He was
answered that the girdles were very tight and heavy, and being bound
over the regions of the heart, were supposed to impede its action, and
prevent it from beating high, and also to chill the wearer, as, being of
opaque material, the warm sunshine of the earth could not get through to
warm them.

"Why, then, do they, not break them asunder," exclaimed the prince, "and
fling them away?"

"Break them asunder!" cried the man; "why, what a madman you must be;
they are made of the purest gold!"

"Forgive my ignorance," replied the prince; "I am a stranger."

So he walked on, for feelings of delicacy prevented him from gazing any
longer at the men with the golden girdles; but as he went he pondered on
the misery he had seen, and thought to himself that this golden sand did
more mischief than all the poisons of the apothecary; for it dazzled the
eyes of some, it strained the hearts of others, it bowed down the heads
of many to the earth with its weight; it was a sore labor to gather it,
and when it was gathered the robber might carry it away; it would be a
good thing, he thought, if there were none of it.

After this he came to a place where were sitting some aged widows and
some orphan children of the gold-diggers, who were helpless and
destitute; they were weeping and bemoaning themselves, but stopped at
the approach of a man whose appearance attracted the prince, for he had
a very great bundle of gold on his back, and yet it did not bow him down
at all; his apparel was rich, but he had no girdle on, and his face was
anything but sad.

"Sir," said the prince to him, "you have a great burden; you are
fortunate to be able to stand under it."

[Illustration: "'I COULD NOT DO SO,' HE REPLIED, 'ONLY THAT AS I GO ON I
KEEP LIGHTENING IT.'"]

"I could not do so," he replied, "only that as I go on I keep lightening
it;" and as he passed each of the widows, he threw gold to her, and,
stooping down, hid pieces of it in the bosoms of the children.

"You have no girdle," said the prince.

"I once had one," answered the gold-gatherer; "but it was so tight over
my breast that my heart grew cold under it, and almost ceased to beat.
Having a great quantity of gold on my back, I felt almost at the last
gasp; so I threw off my gi