her he saw himself in it. He saw himself
just as he was, not as he had looked in the shop windows, for it was a
truthful mirror and it told everything. My! That was a bad moment for
the Duke of Dallas, when he saw that he wasn't young and beautiful, but
old and wrinkled and--funny. That was bad enough, but when he looked
again and saw the princess whom he loved in the arms of his handsome
nephew, why, he gave up. All his fine garments fell off and he realized
with shame that, after all, he was only the withered mountebank.

"When he got home his castle had collapsed. There wasn't a stone
standing, so he ran away--ran to his mother."

"Oh, Mr. Gray!" Ma Briskow quavered. "I could cry. An' after all you
done for Buddy!"

The man shook his head vigorously, still with his face hidden. "It
isn't Buddy. It's youth. Youth needs no fine adornment, no crown, no
victory."

"What you goin' to do?" she asked him.

"Go on playing the duke, I suppose; rebuild the castle the best way I
can. That's the hard part. If I could run away and forget, but--I
can't. The old duke walled himself in. He must grin and strut and keep
people from guessing that he's only a fraud until he can find a hole in
the wall through which he can creep."

There was a long silence, then Ma inquired: "Would you like to tell me
something about the little princess? Sometimes it helps, to talk."

"N-not yet."

"You're a duke, an' the best one that ever lived, Mr. Gray. You can't
fool me; I've met too many of 'em. That lookin'-glass lied! Real dukes
an' kings an' such people don't get old. It's only common folks.
There's lots of magic, the world's full of it, an' your castle is goin'
up again."

"After a fashion, perhaps"--Gray raised his head and smiled
crookedly--"but it will never be a home, and that's what I wanted most
of all. Do you think I'm very weak, very silly to come to you for a
little mothering?"

"That's the kind of children mothers love best," the old woman said,
then she drew him down to her and laid her cheek against his.

"There! I've made you cry," he exclaimed, reproachfully. "What a
selfish beast I am! I'll go now."

"Won't you stay an' have supper with Allie an' me? We're awful lonesome
with Pa gone. Allie's out som'er's, but--it would do me good to know
you was here an' it 'll do you good to stay. You can rest yourself
while I take my nap."

Ma Briskow did not wish to take a nap, but she knew that Gray needed
the solace of hi