udience with the Prince. "Does your majesty know," said
he, "that the Phoenix is here?"

At this all the people set up a shout. "The Phoenix! It is the royal
bird of Percan! Long live the Phoenix!"

The Prince and people passed into the garden and stood looking at the
Phoenix. "Now I am respected;" said he. "This is as it should be." It
was a great day for the Phoenix and a great day for the people. The
Poet recited a long ode in his honour. The musicians played a great deal
of music; the wise men, moreover, all got together and held a discussion
for several hours about his age; but the people did not care much for
this. The Phoenix was given a place above the throne. And not only
that, but upon that very day the Prince of Percan, son of Shahtah the
Great, the former king, was throned king and took for his queen the
beautiful Isal, daughter of a woodman. He wore the Old Brown Coat, and
it fitted him very well; it took the Sixteen Coat-Tails only an hour,
with all their care, to get it upon him. When it was nightfall, the
Phoenix came majestically down from his high perch, and hovering for a
few minutes about the King and Queen, gave them a great deal of good
advice which they could not understand, and then sailed grandly away,
joined the Tufters in the woods, and flew back to his eyrie, far off. In
the Palace lived the Prince and his beautiful Queen, the good Isal.

The Sacrifice.

[Illustration]

The Prince and Isal had now been married nearly five years, so that Isal
was then eighteen years old and even more beautiful than when the prince
found her in the garden. The royal family was at first displeased that
the Prince should marry a peasant maiden, but Isal was so good that one
could not help loving her, and soon every one said that there never had
been such a Queen in Percan. As for the Prince, he loved her more than
the whole of his kingdom; he always called her his Morning-Star. And
Isal loved the Prince and was very happy in the palace where she had
everything she could desire; but often in the five years did she
remember the woodman's hut on the bank of the great blue river where she
had spent her childhood; often she thought of her father living there
alone, reft of his little daughter, the one comfort of his life. Then
would the Prince come with his kind love, and quite drive away such sad
thoughts. As the years went by she thought less of her former life;
indeed it was so different from the prese