and Tobene, would run out into the
plain to meet him and join in a game, or if it was at night, and he came
within the walls, the house-holders would join in the song of welcome
which the Poet Laureate of Ule had written for such occasions. And soon
the Flamp would return to the mountains happy again.

The Christmas following the Understanding of the Flamp (as the
establishment of these new relations was called) was a time of good
fellowship, such as no Ulian had dreamed to be possible. Christmas at
last really was Christmas. The Flamp as of old came down at evening, but
this year no doors were barred, no blinds were drawn; instead he passed
from house to house throughout the city, looking in at the upper windows
and receiving a welcome at each, and sometimes a piece of plum-cake,
sometimes a packet of sweets, all of which passed down his huge red
throat. Is it necessary to say that his longest stay was at the nursery
window of the Liglid's house?

In fact Tilsa and Tobene, as you may imagine, were always the Flamp's
favourites, and every summer it was they, and they alone, who were
honoured by an invitation to stay for a fortnight in the Blue Mountains,
where they had such a holiday as falls to the lot of few children.

So did Ule, under the Flampian influence, become one of the happiest
spots in the world, and strangers poured into the city every day to
learn the secret of contentment.

The Ameliorator

_TO "EVERSLEY" AND ALL WITHIN IT_

I

THE CITY OF BIRDS

Once upon a time there was a city where the good people were under the
protection of singing-birds of all kinds: nightingales, thrushes,
blackbirds, robins, chaffinches, linnets. As you passed through the
streets the song of one at least of these little fellows was certain to
strike pleasantly on the ear; for they would perch on the window-sills,
or in the branches of the trees before the houses, and fling out their
glad notes.

No money could buy the birds. It mattered not how rich a man was, if he
were not merry at heart no bird's voice could be his to gladden the
hours with song.

Fugitives fleeing across the wide plain at night would, once within the
gates of the city, pause a moment with raised finger, listening
breathlessly. Then the still air would be filled with beautiful,
consoling music, and 'Hark,' they would say, 'the nightingale! A good
man lives close by. Let us knock and ask protection.' And travellers
hearing a bl