she saw her lover leave the room, and heard him go down the
staircase, she closed the door behind him and finished her toilet.

The king got up earlier than usual, for he was so anxious to see the new
arrival; but before doing so he sent for the barber to shave him.

They looked everywhere for him, but without success; and at last, in
despair, they went to the bedroom of the new arrival, and, knocking at
the door, intimated the king's command that she should present herself.

The princess was ready; and, slipping past the courtiers, presented
herself before the king.

"Who are you?" inquired the king.

"I am the daughter of the King of Castille, as I informed your mercy
yesterday," answered the princess.

"But where, then, is my barber?" rejoined the king.

"What does one king's daughter know about another king's barber?" said
the princess.

At this moment the real barber presented himself, and humbly begged the
king's pardon for having deceived him.

"But who are you?" roared the king. "Are you a barber or a thief?"

"I am the youngest son of a marquess," answered the youth, "a barber by
trade, and affianced to the daughter of the King of Castille."

Then the princess stepped forward and explained everything to the king,
who was so interested with what he heard, that the princess and the
barber had to tell the tale over and over again to him. Then he said--

"I have been shaved by the King of Castille's daughter, and I have
courted his barber. I will not be again deceived. They shall now be man
and wife for ever."

This was the wise King of Leon.

THE COBBLER OF BURGOS.

Not far from the Garden of the Widows, in Burgos, lived a cobbler who
was so poor that he had not even smiled for many years. Every day he saw
the widow ladies pass his small shop on the way to and from the garden;
but in their bereavement it would not have been considered correct for
them to have bestowed a glance on him, and they required all the money
they could scrape together, after making ample provision for their
comfort--which, as ladies, they did not neglect--to pay for Masses for
the repose of the souls of their husbands, according to the doctrines of
the faith which was pinned on to them in childhood.

The priests, however, would sometimes bestow their blessing on Sancho
the cobbler; but beyond words he got nothing from the comforters of the
widows and of the orphans.

Some of the great families would have their b