or,
excited Roman senators, fauns, nymphs, satyrs, celebrities and
historical personages, went back to their pictures; and to cap the
climax, the ugly bride became once more her sweet and lovely self.

While everybody was cheering, who should walk out of the sacristy but
the Court Astrologer! An instant later, he had fallen into the
affectionate arms of the faithful wife who had wound him up for
twenty-one years.

After the wedding reception, the Prince and his bride went on a
honeymoon to the Enchanted Islands. As for Poldo the poodle, he was
created Prime Minister and lived to a fine old age.

MARIANNA

[Illustration: Young girl sitting on tree trunk; a small bird is perched
on her left hand; a small bottle is fastened to her belt.]

Once upon a time a wicked nobleman rose in rebellion against his
rightful king, and taking the royal forces by surprise, defeated them
and seized the kingdom. The dethroned King, who had been severely
wounded in battle, was cast in prison, where he soon died; but his
widow, the Queen, managed to escape from the palace before the usurper
could lay hands upon her.

Into the dark forest which lay behind the palace ran the Queen, holding
her baby daughter in her arms. It was winter time, and a heavy snow had
hidden the foot-paths and the roads. Presently the Queen realized that
she was lost. All afternoon, however, she trudged bravely on through the
silence and the cold, her heart sinking as mile after mile revealed no
sign of a house or a shelter.

But late in the afternoon, when the red shield of the sun could scarcely
be seen through the tangle of the wild wood-branches, she perceived a
light coming from a little grove of cedars by the shore of a frozen
lake. The Queen made her way toward this light, and discovered a little
thatched hut in the silent wood; it was the house of one of the dwarfs
of the forest. The dwarf took pity on the Queen, but his efforts were
vain, for the poor woman was so weak and exhausted that she died without
telling the dwarf anything about herself or the child she carried.

So the little dwarf, who was a good, kind old fellow, brought the little
girl up as if she were his own child. His brother, the dwarf of the
mountain, made her the prettiest red-leather shoes, and his cousins, the
dwarfs of the pines, made the little girl dresses from cloth woven on
fairy looms.

Now, on the night her mother brought her to the hut, the little girl was
we