it, 'I always have the last person I let out furnish me with my breakfasts and suppers until his place is taken by the next "victim." It's a good system, isn't it?' The knight, whose mouth was filled with an extra large chunk of apple which he had bitten off, thinking the lion was going on for a while, had to cover his momentary forgetfulness of manners by only nodding. But this was as good as words, and so the lion started again.

"Sir Adrian was almost as nice a knight as you-not quite so polished, but still very, very nice.' He said the last three words slowly, as if weighing something over in his mind. Then he continued with, 'I think you are better than Sir Adrian, though. He told me a lot of bad things about himself, and asked me a lot of advice. I made him promise to be better. He said he would. Have you anything to tell me, or is there any advice that I can give you?'

"The knight cogitated a while, and then said: 'Yes, I have. You see, once I got very angry at a knight, and we fought, and I hurt him badly. He was a bad knight, and started it all, and was very angry too. But I was a bit more so, and beat him. It was the first time that I had really hurt anybody, and I was awfully sorry. I wore black armor for a while after it, and, as you see, wear a black shirt underneath, now. I like white armor better, so I took the other off. Now, do you think I could change my black shirt for a red one-the kind I used to wear?'

'You could,' was the thoughtful answer, 'but I shouldn't. I know you are very sorry from the tone of your voice, but don't you think that touch of black at the bottom of your corse shows it up well?'

"The knight looked down, and finally agreed. That question was settled, and they ate in silence for a while. All of a sudden, the knight asked, 'Why are you such a very polite, and such a very gentle lion ?'

"The lion almost dropped his biscuit with the jam on it. 'Oh,' he exclaimed, 'I do wish you didn't say things so unexpectedly! It startles me.-Well, you see it is this way: once, as I said before, I was young, and very, very fierce. But after I had eaten the man, I was sorry, and resolved to do nothing like it again. It is a principle with me that I always live up to resolves, and so I have not done it again. I almost forgot myself last

night—you smelt so very good, and, too, I was angry because my eyes hadn't lit up. I haven't spoken so gruffly in years. I do hope you will forgive me.'

"The knight assured him that he did not think the words said were at all gruff, but had thought right along that he had to do with quite the most pleasant lion of his acquaintance. ‘And,' he added, ‘my acquaintance is extremely broad, for I make it a point to go around to all the bad kings and tell them that they are bad, and they always feed me to their favorite lion. The last one I had to do with was very disagreeable. He bit me once, and I had to tell him that I should kill him if he wasn't more mannerly, and he walked off quite hurt, and said he was only playing, which I knew he wasn't. During the night, I climbed out, and that is all the dealings I shall have with him.'

"The lion seemed very interested, and just as soon as the knight was through, he asked, 'Was his tail very long, and not very bushy?'

'Why yes, now that I come to think of it,' replied his companion.

'Just what I thought! That lion was always unmannerly, ever since he was a cub. His mother brought him up quite differently from the way my mother brought me up. He was allowed to do just what he liked, and you see the result!' As a word of explanation he added, 'We grew up together, you know, and he was always envious of my tail. That is what soured him so. But to go on with the answer of your question: I have always lived up to my resolution, and the next person they sent down to me I asked to help me dig a hole out from the inside of the cave. He was awfully nice about it, and helped a lot. They had thought I was so fierce, that, just out of pity, they had sent him down with a sword. It was quite handy, and he didn't mind having it nicked at all. We got a fine little door cut out, and we worked out the system together. I still use it. Good old Sir Launcelot! I wonder where he is now?"

"Why I saw him a short while ago. He was splendid, and has become quite famous, you know.'

"Has he? Why, that's fine. I wish he would come and see me. He must be getting quite old now. Let me see: it is three -seven-eleven-almost twelve years since I have seen him.

A fine knight, Sir Launcelot.' There was silence for a while; they had finished breakfast to the last crumb. 'Heigh-ho,' sighed the lion, at length, 'well, breakfast is through, and I shall have to take my nap now.'

“But you never finished about why you were so very polite, and so very gentle,' interposed the knight, a little afraid that he might not hear the whole tale.

"Well, I shall tell you that, and then let you out. After getting Sir Launcelot to help me dig the exit, and after we had worked out the system of having the last one to go out bring me my meals with an extra lot for the next chap the morning after he has been put in, I have been very comfortable here. There really is no use eating people when you can get out of it and keep your reputation at the same time, and truly, I did not enjoy that first man at all. I think, probably, it was just because he was really, at heart, a very bad man, and no gentleman. I think I am really glad I did eat him: he probably would have been not even civil to me the next morning if I hadn't. And yet, I didn't enjoy him. It was quite against my good breeding, that is all. But as I said, I have been very comfortable here without having to eat people, and everyone has been very nice to me, and has given me all sorts of awfully good things.-I like a bit of sweets now and then, and haven't had some for quite a while. See if you can get me something tasty for supper to-night-anything but hot-cross buns; I hate them.-My, it must be late: see how high the sun is on that wall. I'll have to go out and growl a bit, just to keep up appearances you understand, and then I'll sleep till supper time.-That's the way out, through the hole there. I'll leave the basket for you later in the afternoon. Don't forget the sweets, please, and do come back and see me, won't you?'"

Uncle George stopped, and we were just coming up to the house by the little path that winds through the evergreens. "But, Uncle George," queried Edie, "wasn't there any princess ?"

"Oh, yes, Edie, but she will come in later, when the White Knight comes back to see his friend again.”

Robert C. Bates.

MAJ

THE DOCTOR'S PARADOX.

AJOR PEARCE sat on a snow-bank, and picked flowers. It was his never-failing diversion after lunch. While the other adult youngsters from the hotel pelted each other and the stable-windows with easily packed balls of the reluctantly melting stuff, it tickled his sense of the unfitness of things to engage himself in such a delightful paradox of idleness. His seat was a cold and unhealthy one, in spite of the lined thicknesses of his trenchcoat; and the flowers were, to him, quite nameless. He was no botanist, much less an expert in Alpine flora; yet the rich variety and bright colorings of the short-stemmed blossoms, typical of the snow-line, fascinated him. Yesterday, without once stirring from his chosen seat, he had succeeded in collecting fourteen distinct varieties, and had added them to the horde of paling flower-ghosts which were already threatening to force the stout binding from his medical encyclopædia; their essence-oozing petals hopelessly staining the printed sheets of india paper between which they were compressed.

Perhaps he should do better to-day: he might locate fifteen-or even eighteen! Then, he knew, he would go in and write to his wife, just as he had every afternoon of his three weeks' stay here. Of course, he must again tease her, somewhat pityingly, about the discomforts of her enforced summer in New York.... Then reiterate the coolness, the picturesqueness, of this spot high up in the Alps. Here might figure once more the incident of the flower-picking.

"For you must know, my dear," his energetic pen would sprawl condescendingly, "that at a mere ten thousand feet (elevation above sea-level, of course), one sees snow all the year round, even in sunny France.-And where the snow leaves off, the flowers commence. And they seem all the brighter by contrast -emerging from the colorless snow which has been their shroud. -Like a new-freed moth alongside its cast-off pupa-case.-Curious-to see ruddy life in such close juxtaposition to cold death!" Only, after much deliberation, with a series of transparent crosses he would attempt to eliminate, as being too heavy, the

final observation. But leave it sufficiently clear for his reader to appreciate the philosophic heights of which his intellect was capable. And he could imagine his wife, prosaic and unimpressed, re-reading and chuckling to herself:

"Dear old duffer, with his dashes, and x's, and everything!" Then, his pen determinedly resumed, would follow a repetition of the impracticability of their ever touring in France again, without spending together a great part of their time around Grenoble, and especially this very inn at Lauteret-so that she might be convinced that all the Alps were by no means in Switzerland. That the scenery was every whit as marvellous here, less trammelled by tourists, and the climbing fully as exciting. Here he might tell of Henry's exploit of the day before, and of his absence to-day in an excursion up the minor peak of Pelvoux— with this pettish conclusion:

"That son of ours will be the undoing of us yet!-His mother ought to be here, to tone him down a bit.-Henry's stunts fairly make the natives shake their heads, and stand on the end of” (prodigal usage of the vainly-camouflaging crosses) "and their hair stand on end.-But, for all that, I'm having as wonderful a time of it as Henry.-He's making me young again.-I've never stopped blessing the day that dragged me away from the torture of my work at the base hospital, nor the medical officer's 'pull' that brought him a furlough at the same time as my own.There's but one thing we lack here, to make us thoroughly happy. -That's his Mother, and my Wife."

And the conclusion, truly American in its demonstrativeness: "Your aff. husband-William."

The major was triumphantly, if somewhat corpulently, bending in a breathless stretch for his fifteenth specimen of the afternoon, equilibrium successfully retained in his moist-moulded seat, as he finished the mental rehearsal of this literary masterpiece. His quest temporarily postponed, he straightened up, eyes blinking from their prolonged focussing in fruitful scrutiny of the succulent grass. For the first time, he noticed that the grown-up gambollers had left their friendly snow-battle, to seek indoors the warmth of the open hearth against the lowering chill of the atmosphere. The mid-afternoon sun, brilliantly pleasant a while ago, had retreated behind a sodden, murky haze. There were no