e, with servants and horses and
gardens and fountains, and he had brought the golden ark of God to be
near him in a purple tent on Mount Zion; but he had set his whole heart
on this fair-haired child, and the fear that the little one might die
took the joy out of everything.

The peacocks on the walls and the doves on the roof missed the little
child from the garden, where he used to come and feed them. For seven
long days and seven longer nights the loving mother watched him as he
lay getting slowly worse; and the king's grief was so great that he
would not rise from the floor to eat by day or night, and when his
slaves spoke to him he paid no heed and would not answer.

He refused to put on the fresh clothing they brought for him, or to
wash in the brass basins of water held out to him, or to eat the food
placed on the table at his side; but he lay on the floor of his little
room groaning, and praying to God for the little one.

After a week of suffering the little one passed away in the hushed room
of the king's palace at Jerusalem, and the weeping mother was led away
from the bedside of her dead child. Sorrowing friends went to tell the
king in his chamber; but when they came to the door of his room they
stopped and whispered, saying,--

"If he would not listen to us while the child yet lived, what will his
grief be if we say that the boy is dead?"

The king heard them talking, and looking up, saw from their faces what
had happened. Then he asked if the child was dead, and they told him,
expecting that he would break out into wild grief; but he did not.
Rising from the floor, where he had lain so long, he asked for water;
and his slaves washed him and brought clean, fresh clothing, and combed
and oiled his hair.

He spoke to no one, but went out into the sunshine and the wind; and
they watched to see what he would do, and where he would go. He did
not linger among the shady walks of the king's garden or by the ponds
where the red lilies grew and the swans shook out their white plumes in
the sun.

His friends followed him as he went slowly out of the palace gardens
and away to the great tent of purple and crimson, which he liked to
call the House of God, on Mount Zion; and they stopped outside when he
drew the rich curtains apart and went in. There in the darkness he
knelt, and with hands upraised bowed his face to the ground before God
as he poured out his soul in prayer.

After a time the king came o