en years' worth
of plans were miraculously cancelled, and Sir Percival finally asked
the Big Question, to which Arissa replied, "Well, okay."

And so they were married and lived happily ever after, with Arissa
often telling Sir Percival how she had secretly loved him from the
first time she saw him, while Sir Percival, each time he kissed
Arissa's apricot-flavored lips, congratulated himself for his skill
in winning her.

Truth Carved in Stone

A wise old philosopher was walking through the park with a young man
and his true love when they came upon a beautiful statue of a Nereid.
"Come here," he said to the youth, "and touch this statue." The young
man put his hand on the statue's arm and felt of it closely, though
he did not seem surprised at what he found. "Now the girl," the old
man continued; so the lover also felt of his girlfriend's arm, in the
same way. "And now," the man said, "tell me what you have learned."

"I'm not sure," the young man began. "The statue is hard and cold;
the girl is warm and soft. Her flesh yields when I press; the marble
does not."

"You have learned well," concluded the philosopher, "and if each of
you remembers and lives by these truths, you will have a happy
life together."

How Sir Philo Married a Beautiful Princess
Instead of the Woman He Loved

Once upon a time--and it had to be pretty long ago, as you will
see--there lived a bunch of people in a little inland kingdom. The
king, Cleon the Modest, was basically a good fellow, though he was
not known for his brilliance in government. Instead, he was known
chiefly for his glowing and nubile daughter, Jennifrella, a girl,
though proud and a trifle petulant, so freighted with beauty and
charms that pretty much every bachelor--and not a few married
men--in the kingdom dreamed about her, whether awake or asleep.
Truly, she maketh my pen tremble even as I write this.

Now Cleon was desirous of marrying off this legendary beauty as soon
as possible so that he could be free of the constant entreaties for
her hand, free of the frequent bills for supplying her dressing table,
and free to spend more time in his rose garden, which he truly loved.
The king would have had little trouble choosing the richest suitor in
the kingdom for his daughter, except that there were no exceptionally
wealthy bachelors in the realm, and those of modest wealth all had
castles and money boxes of essentially similar dimensions.

For her