d Prospero; "if you, who are but a
spirit, feel for their distress, shall not I, who am a human being
like themselves, have compassion on them? Bring them quickly, my
dainty Ariel."

Ariel soon returned with the king, Antonio, and old Gonzalo in their
train, who had followed him, wondering at the wild music he played in
the air to draw them on to his master's presence. This Gonzalo was the
same who had so kindly provided Prospero formerly with books and
provisions, when his wicked brother left him, as he thought, to perish
in an open boat in the sea.

Grief and terror had so stupefied their senses that they did not know
Prospero. He first discovered himself to the good old Gonzalo, calling
him the preserver of his life; and then his brother and the king knew
that he was the injured Prospero.

Antonio, with tears and sad words of sorrow and true repentance,
implored his brother's forgiveness; and the king expressed his sincere
remorse for having assisted Antonio to depose his brother; and
Prospero forgave them, and upon their engaging to restore his dukedom,
he said to the king of Naples, "I have a gift in store for you, too;"
and, opening a door, showed him his son Ferdinand playing at chess
with Miranda.

Nothing could exceed the joy of the father and the son at this
unexpected meeting, for they each thought the other drowned in the
storm.

"O wonder!" said Miranda, "what noble creatures these are! It must
surely be a brave world that has such people in it."

The king of Naples was almost as much astonished at the beauty and the
excellent graces of the young Miranda as his son had been. "Who is
this maid?" said he; "she seems the goddess that has parted us and
brought us thus together." "No, sir," answered Ferdinand, smiling to
find his father had fallen into the same mistake that he had made when
he first saw Miranda, "she is a mortal, but by immortal Providence she
is mine; I chose her when I could not ask you, my father, for your
consent, not thinking you were alive. She is the daughter to this
Prospero, who is the famous duke of Milan, of whose renown I have
heard so much, but never saw him till now; of him I have received a
new life,--he has made himself to me a second father, giving me this
dear lady."

"Then I must be her father," said the king; "but oh, how oddly will it
sound, that I must ask my child forgiveness!"

"No more of that," said Prospero; "let us not remember our troubles
past, since the