s."

Then Merlin described a circle with his wand, and went back and sat down
beside her. Within a few hours the castle was before her in the wood,
Knights and ladies were singing in its courtyard, and an orchard in
blossom grew about.

"Have I done what I promised?" asked Merlin.

"Fair, sweet friend," said she, "you have done so much for me that I am
always yours."

Vivian became like a daughter to the old magician, and he taught her
many of the most wonderful things that any mortal heart could think
of--things past, things that were done, and part of what was to come.

You have been told in Tennyson that Vivian learned so many of Merlin's
enchantments that in his old age she took advantage of him and put him
to sleep forever in the hollow of a tree. But the older legend gives us
better news. He showed her how to make a tower without walls so they
might dwell there together alone in peace. This tower was "so strong
that it may never be undone while the world endures." After it was
finished he fell asleep with his head in her lap, and she wove a spell
nine times around his head so that he might rest more peacefully.

But the old enchanter does not sleep forever. Here in the forest of
Broceliande, on a magic island, Merlin dwells with his nine bards, and
only Vivian can come or go through the magic walls. It was toward this
tower, so the legends say, that, after the passing of King Arthur,
Merlin was last seen by some Irish monks, sailing away westward, with
the maiden Vivian, in a boat of crystal, beneath the sunset sky.

[Illustration: Courtesy of A. Lofthouse

THE WILLOW PATTERN

The plate of which this is a photograph was brought to America from
England about 1875; it had at that time been in the possession of one
family for a hundred years.]

[Illustration: JAPANESE AND OTHER ORIENTAL TALES]

THE CUB'S TRIUMPH

Once upon a time there lived in a forest a badger and a mother fox with
one little Cub.

There were no other beasts in the wood, because the hunters had killed
them all with bows and arrows, or by setting snares. The deer, and the
wild boar, the hares, the weasels, and the stoats--even the bright
little squirrels--had been shot, or had fallen into traps. At last, only
the badger and the fox, with her young one, were left, and they were
starving, for they dared not venture from their holes for fear of the
traps.

They did not know what to do, or where to turn for fo