s rather venture-some, dashed away after her and
also became invisible to them. The others followed more cautiously,
stretching out their hands to feel the wall and finding, to their
astonishment, that they could feel nothing because nothing opposed
them. They walked on a few steps and found themselves in the streets
of a very beautiful city. Behind them they again saw the wall, grim
and forbidding as ever, but now they knew it was merely an illusion
prepared to keep strangers from entering the city.

But the wall was soon forgotten, for in front of them were a number of
quaint people who stared at them in amazement as if wondering where
they had come from. Our friends forgot their good manners for a time
and returned the stares with interest, for so remarkable a people had
never before been discovered in all the remarkable Land of Oz.

Their heads were shaped like diamonds, and their bodies like hearts.
All the hair they had was a little bunch at the tip top of their
diamond-shaped heads, and their eyes were very large and round, and
their noses and mouths very small. Their clothing was tight fitting
and of brilliant colors, being handsomely embroidered in quaint designs
with gold or silver threads; but on their feet they wore sandals with
no stockings whatever. The expression of their faces was pleasant
enough, although they now showed surprise at the appearance of
strangers so unlike themselves, and our friends thought they seemed
quite harmless.

"I beg your pardon," said the Wizard, speaking for his party, "for
intruding upon you uninvited, but we are traveling on important
business and find it necessary to visit your city. Will you kindly
tell us by what name your city is called?"

They looked at one another uncertainly, each expecting some other to
answer. Finally, a short one whose heart-shaped body was very broad
replied, "We have no occasion to call our city anything. It is where
we live, that is all."

"But by what name do others call your city?" asked the Wizard.

"We know of no others except yourselves," said the man. And then he
inquired, "Were you born with those queer forms you have, or has some
cruel magician transformed you to them from your natural shapes?"

"These are our natural shapes," declared the Wizard, "and we consider
them very good shapes, too."

The group of inhabitants was constantly being enlarged by others who
joined it. All were evidently startled and uneasy at the a