ry young. His blue eyes
were very sharp and bright, and he had rosy cheeks and fair curly
hair. He was dressed very poorly, and around his shoulders were
festooned strings of something that looked like fine white flowers,
but it was in reality pop-corn. He carried a great basket of pop-corn,
and bore a corn-popper over his shoulder.

When he entered he bowed low to the Head-nurse; her bonnet did not
seem to surprise him at all. "Would you like to buy some of my nice
pop-corn, madam?" he asked.

She curtesied. "Not to-day," she replied.

But in reality she did not know what pop-corn was. She had never seen
any, and neither had the Baron. That indeed was the reason why he had
admitted the man--he was curious to see what he was carrying. "Is it
good to eat?" he inquired.

"Try it, my lord," answered the man. So the Baron put a pop-corn in
his mouth and chewed it critically. "It is very good indeed," he
declared.

The man passed the basket to the Head-nurse, and she lifted the
cape of her bonnet and put a pop-corn in her mouth, and nibbled it
delicately. She also thought it very good.

"But there is no use in discussing new articles of food when the
kingdom is under the cloud that it is at present, and my retorts and
crystals all smashed," said the Baron.

"Why, what is the cloud, my lord?" inquired the Pop-corn man. Then the
Baron told him the whole story.

"Of course it is necromancy," remarked the Pop-corn man thoughtfully,
when the Baron had finished.

The Baron pounded on the table until it danced. "Necromancy!" he
cried, "of course it's necromancy! Who but a necromancer could have
made a child invisible, and stolen her away in the face and eyes of
the whole court?"

"Have you any idea where she is?" ask the Pop-corn man.

The Baron stared at him in amazement.

"Idea where she is?" he repeated scornfully. "You are just of a piece
with the idiots who broke my mirrors to see if the Princess was not
behind them! How should we have any idea where she is if she is lost,
pray?"

The Pop-corn man blushed, and looked frightened, but the Head-nurse
spoke up quite bravely, although her voice was so muffled, and said
that she really did have some idea of the Princess's whereabouts. She
propounded her views which were quite plausible. It was her opinion
that only an enemy of the King would have caused the Princess to be
stolen, and as the King had only one enemy of whom anybody knew, and
he was the King across t