s no opening that I can see, for this broad band
around the middle looks perfectly smooth, as if it were all in one
piece. The band won't slip down nor up. The corners, the brass tips,
don't budge. It's a perfect cube--let's measure. Yes. Just as big one
way as another. The wood is as fine as satin and looks as if it had been
polished to the last degree. Do you suppose it is brass or gold that
trims it? And where, where did it come from? The earth on it was so
fresh I don't believe that it had been buried but a little while, and
oh, I'm just wild to know all about it. Come on. Let's go home. You may
carry it part of the time. But don't drop it. Don't, for your life!"
chattered the girl, placing the box in Monty's outstretched palms and
anxiously regarding his manner of holding it.

His face was a study. Boys, in general, are supposed to be intensely
practical and less gifted with imagination than girls, but this is a
mistake. Youth is the time for air-castle building, and whether it be
lad or lass who "dreams" there is but little difference. Poor Monty!
Unable to put his soaring thoughts into speech as his companion so
readily could, he had to be content with just thinking them. But as he
turned his beautiful eyes upon her she understood all that he would have
said and clapped her hands, crying ecstatically:

"Oh, I'm so glad! You're one can make-believe everything lovely, too! I
see it. What fun we'll have! Let's begin at once. We're in the enchanted
forest. We've been enchanted ourselves. But the fairy king has come and
shown us where to find the magic treasure that will unlock the whole
world for us and make us back into the real prince and princess that we
are all the time, though other people don't know it. He has given us the
magic box with the key in it, only he has forgotten to tell us how to
open it. We are on our way now to the Wise Woman. The Wise Woman lives
in the stone castle beyond the forest, and she will show us how to open
the box and to use the key. Because the box was hers once, before she
gave it to the fairy king to keep for us. She knew that one day we
should come into the forest and that all would happen that has happened.
That's what makes her the Wise Woman. She has lived a long, long time.
So long that her hair is quite gray and there are wrinkles around her
eyes. But the eyes are still clear and gentle and there is a pretty pink
color in her cheeks. She wears a soft gray gown with an old-fash