he opened them,
the picture, the easel, the palette, and brushes had disappeared, and
she was standing in a garden where roses and lilies and red carnations
were growing, and fountains were sending up cool white spray. The Red
Emperor was there also.

And beside Paulina there stood Peter himself.

"I am my proper size again," said he. "It's been all a very wonderful
journey, and I've seen wonderful sights."

Paulina kissed him, saying--

"Peter, let us happy be
With one another;
Henceforth be content with me,
Little brother."

"Of course he must be content," said the Red Emperor severely.

"Of course he must," echoed the Wind, "if not, I shall whirl him away to
the top of a mountain."

[Illustration: "ONE OF THE MANNIKINS TUMBLED."]

"Of course he must," said two mannikins who suddenly appeared in sight,
rolling and pushing along what seemed to Paulina to be the half of a
large orange.

Not that it was anything of the sort.

"It's a casket of gold
From the caverns old,
Where the dwarfs are working for ever.
All that it doth hold,
If you should be told,
Oh! would you believe it? no, never!"

And one of the mannikins tumbled over it, and turned somersaults, and
rolled it up to Paulina.

And then the Wind whispered very softly to her--

"Little maid, I told you true,
Mannikins in red and blue
Would bring something good for you
If the painting well were done
Ere the setting of the sun."

"Yes, yes," said Paulina; "it's all true; but the painting's gone, and
it all seems like a dream; and I've got Peter back, and his ankle's
well. But how did he get his blue suit?"

But that neither the Red Emperor nor the Wind told her; neither did
Peter, for when she asked him the question he only said--

"I don't know!"

JULIA GODDARD.

[Illustration: THE EDITOR'S POCKET-BOOK.

JOTTINGS AND PENCILLINGS, HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE]

The Natural Bridge, Virginia.

The two greatest natural curiosities--if one may use the phrase in this
connection--in North America are the Falls of Niagara and the Natural
Bridge in Virginia. A picture of the latter will be seen in our new
heading. It is an arch cut, so to speak, out of the rock, and stands
upwards of two hundred feet above the ground below. How it originated
has been a kind of puzzle, some urging that the rock was hollowed by an
earthquake, others that the bridge is the result of the action of water.