ry happy.

Just then he heard his little daughter crying bitterly, and she came
running into the room sobbing as if her heart would break. "How
now, little lady," he said, "pray what is the matter with you this
morning?"

"Oh dear, oh dear, such a dreadful thing has happened!" answered the
child. "I went to the garden to gather you some roses, and they are
all spoiled; they have grown quite ugly, and stiff, and yellow, and
they have no scent. What can be the matter?" and she cried bitterly.

Midas was ashamed to confess that he was to blame, so he said nothing,
and they sat down at the table. The King was very hungry, and he
poured out a cup of coffee and helped himself to some fish, but the
instant his lips touched the coffee it became the color of gold, and
the next moment it hardened into a solid lump. "Oh dear me!" exclaimed
the King, rather surprised.

"What is the matter, father?" asked his little daughter.

"Nothing, child, nothing," he answered; "eat your bread and milk
before it gets cold."

Then he looked at the nice little fish on his plate, and he gently
touched its tail with his finger. To his horror it at once changed
into gold. He took one of the delicious hot cakes, and he had scarcely
broken it when the white flour changed into yellow crumbs which shone
like grains of hard sea-sand.

"I do not see how I am going to get any breakfast," he said to
himself, and he looked with envy at his little daughter, who had dried
her tears and was eating her bread and milk hungrily. "I wonder if it
will be the same at dinner," he thought, "and if so, how am I going to
live if all my food is to be turned into gold?"

Midas began to get very anxious and to think about many things he
had never thought of before. Here was the very richest breakfast that
could be set before a King, and yet there was nothing that he could
eat! The poorest workman sitting down to a crust of bread and a cup of
water was better off than King Midas, whose dainty food was worth its
weight in gold.

He began to doubt whether, after all, riches were the only good thing
in the world, and he was so hungry that he gave a groan.

His little daughter noticed that her father ate nothing, and at first
she sat still looking at him and trying to find out what was the
matter. Then she got down from her chair, and running to her father,
she threw her arms lovingly round his knees.

Midas bent down and kissed her. He felt that his little daughte