ers of small round
objects that looked like white berries.

Then he came down and told her what he had seen, and wanted to know
all about it, and when she answered that the little round fruit-like
objects he had seen were cells full of purple honey that tasted sweet
and salt, he wanted her to get him some.

"Not now--not to-day," she replied, "for now you love me and are
contented to be with me, and you are my own darling child. When you
are naughty, and try to grieve me all you can, and would like to go
away and never see me more, you shall taste the purple honey."

He looked up into her face wondering and troubled at her words, and
she smiled down so sweetly on his upturned face, looking very
beautiful and tender, that it almost made him cry to think how
wilful and passionate he had been, and climbing on to her knees he
put his little face against her cheek.

[Illustration: ]

Then, while he was still caressing her, light tripping steps were
heard over the stony path, and through the bushes came two beautiful
wild animals--a doe with her fawn! Martin had often seen the wild
deer on the plains, but always at a great distance and running; now
that he had them standing before him he could see just what they
were like, and of all the four-footed creatures he had ever looked
on they were undoubtedly the most lovely. They were of a slim shape,
and of a very bright reddish fawn-colour, the young one with dappled
sides; and both had large trumpet-like ears, which they held up as
if listening, while they gazed fixedly at Martin's face with their
large, dark, soft eyes. Enchanted with the sight of them, he slipped
down from his mother's lap, and stretched out his arms towards them,
and the doe, coming a little nearer, timidly smelt at his hand, then
licked it with her long, pink tongue.

In a few minutes the doe and fawn went away and they saw them no more;
but they left Martin with a heart filled with happy excitement; and
they were but the first of many strange and beautiful wild animals
he was now made acquainted with, so that for days he could think of
nothing else and wished for nothing better.

But one day when she had taken him a good way up on the hillside,
Martin suddenly recognized a huge rocky precipice before him as the
one up which she had taken him, and from the top of which he had
seen the great blue water. Instantly he demanded to be taken up again,
and when she refused he rebelled against her, and was