ain so soon. "My father can come to me when I want him,"
she said. "I need only tell my dear husband to send for him." But
for all that she took the packet of seeds and hid it in her dress.

7. Would you have done as the wise woman told you if you had been
the bride?

8. Ought Kadali-Garbha to have told the king about the mustard seed?

CHAPTER V

After the wedding was over, the king mounted his beautiful horse,
and bending down, took his young wife up before him. Holding her
close to him with his right arm, he held the reins in his left hand;
and away they went, soon leaving all the attendants far behind them,
the queen scattering the mustard seed as she had promised to do. When
they arrived at the palace there were great rejoicings, and everybody
seemed charmed with the queen, who was full of eager interest in all
that she saw.

For several weeks there was nobody in the wide world so happy and
light-hearted as the bride. The king spent many hours a day with her,
and was never tired of listening to all she had to tell him about
her life in the forest with her father. Every day he gave her some
fresh proof of his love, and he never refused to do anything she
asked him to do. But presently a change came. Amongst the ladies
of the court there was a beautiful woman, who had hoped to be queen
herself, and hated Kadali-Garbha so much that she made up her mind
to get her into disgrace with the king. She asked first one powerful
person and then another to help her; but everybody loved the queen,
and the wicked woman began to be afraid that those she had told about
her wish to harm her would warn the king. So she sought about for some
one who did not know Kadali-Garbha, and suddenly remembered a wise
woman named Asoka-Mala, who lived in a cave not far from the town,
to whom many people used to go for advice in their difficulties. She
went to this woman one night, and told her a long story in which there
was not one word of truth. The young queen, she said, did not really
love the king; and with the help of her father, who was a magician,
she meant to poison him. How could this terrible thing be prevented,
she asked; and she promised that if only Asoka-Mala would help to
save Dridha-Varman, she would give her a great deal of money.

Asoka-Mala guessed at once that the story was not true, and that it
was only because the woman was jealous of the beautiful young queen
that she wished to hurt her. But she loved money ver