elf, although she had not persuaded
him that it was of great moment whom a man married. Therefore he was
very anxious to give her the bracelet which he had promised, and more
than once prayed her to accept it. But Osra saw the laugh that lurked
in the King's eye, and would not consent to have the bracelet, and for
a long while she did not love to speak of the Miller of Hofbau. Yet
once, when the King on some occasion cried out very impatiently that
all men were fools, she said:

"Sire, you forget the Miller of Hofbau." And she blushed, and laughed,
and turned her eyes away.

One other thing she did which very greatly puzzled Queen Margaret, and
all the ladies of the Court, and all the waiting-women, and all the
serving-maids, and, in fine, every person high or low who saw or heard
of it, except the King only. For in winter evenings she took her
scissors and her needle, and she cut strips of ribbon, each a foot long
and a couple of inches broad; on each of them she embroidered a motto
or legend; and she affixed the ribbons bearing the legend to each and
every one of the mirrors in each of her chambers at Strelsau, at Zenda,
and at the other royal residences. And her waiting-women noticed that,
whenever she had looked in the mirror and smiled at her own image or
shewn other signs of pleasure in it, she would then cast her eyes up to
the legend, and seem to read it, and blush a little, and laugh a
little, and sigh a little; the reason for which things they could by no
means understand.

For the legend was but this:

"Remember the Miller of Hofbau."

THE STOLEN BODY

By H. G. WELLS

Copyright 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, and 1903 by H. G. Wells.
Copyright 1905 by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, and
Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was well known
among those interested in psychical research as a liberal-minded and
conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried man, and instead of
living in the suburbs, after the fashion of his class, he occupied
rooms in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested
in the questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the
living, and in November, 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in
conjunction with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn, in order to test the
alleged possibility of projecting an apparition of one's self by force
of will through space.

The