d when the people looked again, it was bounding away
with two persons on its back.

* * * * *

Zoulvisia and her husband both learnt how to keep happiness when they
had got it; and _that_ is a lesson that many men and woman never learn
at all. And besides, it is a lesson which nobody can teach, and that
every boy and girl must learn for themselves.

(From _Contes Armeniens_. Par Frederic Macler.)

_GRASP ALL, LOSE ALL_

Once, in former times, there lived in a certain city in India a poor
oil-seller, called Dena, who never could keep any money in his
pockets; and when this story begins he had borrowed from a banker, of
the name of Lena, the sum of one hundred rupees; which, with the
interest Lena always charged, amounted to a debt of three hundred
rupees. Now Dena was doing a very bad business, and had no money with
which to pay his debt, so Lena was very angry, and used to come round
to Dena's house every evening and abuse him until the poor man was
nearly worried out of his life. Lena generally fixed his visit just
when Dena's wife was cooking the evening meal, and would make such a
scene that the poor oil-seller and his wife and daughter quite lost
their appetites, and could eat nothing. This went on for some weeks,
till, one day, Dena said to himself that he could stand it no longer,
and that he had better run away; and, as a man cannot fly easily with
a wife and daughter, he thought he must leave them behind. So that
evening, instead of turning into his house as usual after his day's
work, he just slipped out of the city without knowing very well where
he was going.

At about ten o'clock that night Dena came to a well by the wayside,
near which grew a giant peepul tree; and, as he was very tired, he
determined to climb it, and rest for a little before continuing his
journey in the morning. Up he went and curled himself so comfortably
amongst the great branches that, overcome with weariness, he fell
fast asleep. Whilst he slept, some spirits, who roam about such places
on certain nights, picked up the tree and flew away with it to a
far-away shore where no creature lived, and there, long before the sun
rose, they set it down. Just then the oil-seller awoke; but instead of
finding himself in the midst of a forest, he was amazed to behold
nothing but waste shore and wide sea, and was dumb with horror and
astonishment. Whilst he sat up, trying to collect his senses, he began