arden.
He offered vast rewards. But, though gardeners had come from far and
near, though the King himself had watched them from the palace steps,
and had, once even, cut the first sod with a silver spade . . . yet, it
was all no use. The garden _wouldn't_ be made and the flowers
_wouldn't_ grow. Every kind of patent soil, seeds, hose,
watering-cans, weed-killers and mowing machines had been tried in vain.
There were stacks of them lying in the palace yard, but never a single
flower, never even the beginnings of a garden.

One day the King, quite weary of looking through catalogues and
interviewing possible gardeners, had fallen asleep in the little shed
in the back-yard which was known as "The Arbour." As he slept he had a
dream.

He dreamt that a little wizened old man came to him and said,
"Catalogues and gardeners will not help you. You will never have a
garden until you get the Princess Mary Radiant to come and shine on
your back-yard. Only two men in all your kingdom can help you--Sir
Hunny Bee and Sir Richard Byrde--but even these will be no use without
the smile of the Princess Mary Radiant, and for her you must search
over earth and sky and sea."

The King awoke from his sleep with a start.

"What ho! without there!" he cried. "Fetch me the Princess Mary
Radiant!"

The assembled courtiers shook their heads.

"We have never heard of a lady with that name," they said. "Your
Majesty must have been dreaming."

"Dream or no dream," said the King testily, "some one must fetch me the
Princess Mary Radiant, for if she once smiles on my back-yard it will
be turned into a garden with real grass and real flowers--Canterbury
bells and sunflowers--that's what I have set my heart on!"

The courtiers answered nothing and shook their heads once more.

"We don't know such a lady," they repeated.

"Fetch Sir Hunny Bee, perhaps he can find the Princess for us," ordered
the King.

The courtiers all ran off to find Sir Hunny Bee. In a few minutes that
gallant knight appeared, all dusty from the recent ride from his
castle, and splendid in his knightly garb of black and orange.

"What is your will, your Majesty?" said he, bowing low before the King.

"Search over all lands and bring me hither the Princess Mary Radiant,"
said the King, "for if she should smile on my back-yard it will be
turned into a garden."

Now no knight ever dreams of disobeying his Majesty's commands, however
impossible they may sound,