head in his arms.

"See here, father and mother," cried he; "we'll all have some of this;
it evidently is not poison, and it is good--a great deal better than
potatoes!"

Patroclus and Daphne hesitated, but they were hungry too. Since
the crop of Giant's heads had sprung up in their field instead of
potatoes, they had been hungry most of the time; so they tasted.

"It is good," said Daphne; "but I think it would be better cooked."
So she put some in a kettle of water over the fire, and let it boil
awhile; then she dished it up, and they all ate it. It was delicious.
It tasted more like stewed pumpkin than anything else; in fact it was
stewed pumpkin.

Daphne was inventive, and something of a genius; and next day she
concocted another dish out of the Giant's heads. She boiled them, and
sifted them, and mixed them with eggs and sugar and milk and spice;
then she lined some plates with puff paste, filled them with the
mixture, and set them in the oven to bake.

The result was unparalleled; nothing half so exquisite had ever been
tasted. They were all in ecstasies, AEneas in particular. They gathered
all the Giant's heads and stored them in the cellar. Daphne baked pies
of them every day, and nothing could surpass the felicity of the whole
family.

One morning the King had been out hunting, and happened to ride by the
cottage of Patroclus with a train of his knights. Daphne was baking
pies as usual, and the kitchen door and window were both open, for the
room was so warm; so the delicious odor of the pies perfumed the whole
air about the cottage.

"What is it smells so utterly lovely?" exclaimed the King, sniffing in
a rapture.

He sent his page in to see.

"The housewife is baking Giant's head pies," said the page returning.

"What?" thundered the King. "Bring out one to me!"

So the page brought out a pie to him, and after all his knights had
tasted to be sure it was not poison, and the king had watched them
sharply for a few moments to be sure they were not killed, he tasted
too.

[Illustration: THEN THE KING KNIGHTED HIM ON THE SPOT.]

Then he beamed. It was a new sensation, and a new sensation is a great
boon to a king.

"I never tasted anything so altogether superfine, so utterly
magnificent in my life," cried the king; "stewed peacocks' tongues
from the Baltic, are not to be compared with it! Call out the
housewife immediately!"

So Daphne came out trembling, and Patroclus and AEneas also.

"W