the wan stay. You have as much
right to your superstitions as we to ours."

Sky-High in a serene and beautiful spirit continued ironing,

Nora went back to her pantry. "It's not I that likes the foreign boy
under the roof," she said. "He'll be convertin' the mistress into a
haythen! It'll not be long I'll be here!"

Lucy sat down outside among the trees and birds and watched the wan
waving gently in the wind. How neat Sky-High looked in his flowing dress
of white and blue! She wondered again if he were not indeed a wang!
After a while she made up her mind to relate a Jataka story that night.

The curious tales their little serving-man had told, he called Jataka
legends--all of them parables to illustrate the teachings of the divine
Buddha. (Also these tales had accounts of mountains that were more than
a million miles high, of trees that were a thousand miles tall, and of
fishes that were thousands of miles long.)

These tales had enchanted Lucy, though Charlie cared little for them--he
preferred to hear of kites and other Chinese games. But Lucy seemed to
catch their spirit. And in the evening, when Sky-High sat with them
under the trees or in the balconies, she often said, "Now tell us a
Jataka story!"

But one night she had said instead, "Now let _me_ tell _you_ a
Jataka story!"

The idea that Lucy had a Jataka story seemed to greatly amuse Sky-High.
But the tale itself set his black eyes shining and blinking. This had
been Lucy's tale:

"Sky-High, I dreamed that you were a wang and had lived in a palace."

To-day she sat a long time in the arbor to compose the tale she would
tell in the evening when they would be on the veranda, with Sky-High on
the stair at their feet.

So in the evening she said, "I have composed another Jataka story. Would
you like to hear it, mother? Would you, Sky-High?"

IX.

LUCY'S JATAKA STORY.

Now the little Chinaman began his stories with words like these, for
most Jataka stories so begin:

"Once upon a time in the days of Buddha-Atta in Benares."

To-night Lucy began her tale in nearly the same manner--the words
sounded so fine.

"Once on a time, _after_ the days of Buddha-Atta in Benares, there
was a little Chinese boy who was born a wang, which is a king. And they
called him Wang High-Sky.

"And he lived in a palace, and the stairs of the palace were golden
amber, and the windows were of crystal, and all the knives and forks
were made of pearl and silver