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THE STORY OF A COLD BATH.

4OW I do hate that nasty cold water every morning!' grumbled a small friend of mine, who, with hair still damp from his morning wash, and a face red with anger at his nurse's cruelty in forcing him to go through it, looked very woe-begone indeed.

'Nasty cold water!' repeated I; 'why, who is this that was in such a hurry to get down to the sea and bathe, not so very long ago? and who cried because he wasn't allowed to go into the water by himself?' 'Oh, the sea's quite different; and, besides, that was in summer.'

'Well, what would you say if I told you of a little boy who hated cold water so much that it made him quite ill to touch it; and yet he managed to get so used to it that he took a bath every day.'

'Did he really? How brave he must have been! But is there a story about him?'

'Indeed there is, and a good long one, too. If you like, I'll tell it you; but you must promise to get used to the "nasty cold water," if I do.'

'I'll try,' said the little hero, somewhat doubtfully, but with a good courage nevertheless.

'Well, then, listen: Once upon a time, ever so many years ago, there was a little boy living in a big town, a very long way from here, in a country where all the churches had their roofs covered with gold, and all the houses were painted different colours; where in summer you could see to write a letter at midnight, and in winter you got your gloves frozen on to your hands. And a curious place he had to live in! a great dark house on the top of a hill, with a high, red wall all round it, and all along the wall little holes to shoot arrows or fire guns

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through, in case any one should come to attack it; and there this poor little boy was shut up all the year round, instead of going out into the fields and playing as he would have liked to do.'

'But why couldn't he go out then?'

'Because he had a sister much older than himself, a very bad, cruel woman, who gave orders and governed the country just as if she had been the queen; and she knew that if her brother ever grew big enough, he would have all the power, and no one would care about her any more; and so she determined to kill him.'

'What a dreadful creature! But then the little boy must have been a king, or somebody like that.'

'You're not far wrong,' said I. 'Well, once he was out visiting some friends, and happened to be left in a room by himself, when in through the window came two great rough men with swords in their hands, sent by his sister to kill him. One of them caught him by the arm, and the other was just going to cut his head off, when they heard somebody coming up stairs, and in their fright they let him fall, and jumped out of the window and ran away.'

'Oh-h-h!' said my small hearer, drawing a long

breath.

'Well, after that his friends thought they had better hide him away; so they sent him to a little village some distance from the town, and kept him there till he was quite a big boy. And while he was there he used to get all the boys of the village together and draw them up in a line like soldiers, and give them sticks for guns, and make them march through the streets, with himself at their head, holding a little wooden sword, and wearing a paper helmet. But what he liked best was cutting little ships out of bits of wood, and sailing them; and one day when he was doing this, he began to think how he could ever be a real sailor if he was afraid of cold water; so he ran home, got a tub of cold water, undressed, and jumped right in. The first time he came out quite pale

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and shivering; but he didn't care-in he went again and again till he was tired; and the next day he had another plunge, and so on till he was quite used to it.'

'Well done he!' said the listener; 'I shall think of him next time I'm washed.'

'Do,' said I; 'but now comes the best part of the story. All this time his friends in the town had not been idle; for they were getting all the people on his side, and making the soldiers promise to fight for him. if he ever came back; and the soldiers and the people, who were tired of being ordered about by his cruel sister, were quite ready to join him. So one night he came back and went to the place where the soldiers were, and asked if they would help him; and when they saw him they all gave a shout, and kissed his hands, and said they would obey no one but him; and then he took possession of the town, and shut up his wicked sister in prison, to keep her from doing any more mischief; and so he became ruler over the whole country.'

'It would take too much time if I were to tell you all that he did after that; how he went abroad to learn how to build ships, and helped to make some himself; how he taught his people to wear short coats, instead of trailing about in long frocks down to their heels, which made them tumble down whenever they walked; how a king who lived close by came to attack him, and killed a great many of his soldiers, but he, not a bit discouraged, got more men, and trained them as he had trained the village boys long before, and beat the other king so that he never came back again. But he did one thing that you ought to hear about. You must know that his country, big though it was, did not reach to the sea anywhere, and had not a single place where ships could come in or go out. So after he had conquered this other king, and taken from him some country on the sea-coast, he determined to build a town there, just at the mouth of a river, and that was the hardest work he ever did.'

'But why? he had plenty of men to help him, surely!