ct to their royal lord and master; and the great King
Polydectes himself waved his hand, and ordered him, with the stern,
deep voice of authority, on his peril, to produce the head.

"Show me the Gorgon's head, or I will cut off your own!"

And Perseus sighed.

"This instant," repeated Polydectes, "or you die!"

"Behold it, then!" cried Perseus, in a voice like the blast of a
trumpet.

And, suddenly holding up the head, not an eyelid had time to wink
before the wicked King Polydectes, his evil counselors, and all his
fierce subjects were no longer anything but the mere images of a
monarch and his people. They were all fixed, forever, in the look and
attitude of that moment! At the first glimpse of the terrible head of
Medusa, they whitened into marble! And Perseus thrust the head back
into his wallet, and went to tell his dear mother that she need no
longer be afraid of the wicked King Polydectes.

[Illustration]

TANGLEWOOD PORCH

[Illustration]

AFTER THE STORY

"Was not that a very fine story?" asked Eustace.

"Oh, yes, yes!" cried Cowslip, clapping her hands. "And those funny
old women, with only one eye amongst them! I never heard of anything
so strange."

"As to their one tooth, which they shifted about," observed Primrose,
"there was nothing so very wonderful in that. I suppose it was a false
tooth. But think of your turning Mercury into Quicksilver, and talking
about his sister! You are too ridiculous!"

"And was she not his sister?" asked Eustace Bright. "If I had thought
of it sooner, I would have described her as a maiden lady, who kept a
pet owl!"

"Well, at any rate," said Primrose, "your story seems to have driven
away the mist."

And, indeed, while the tale was going forward, the vapors had been
quite exhaled from the landscape. A scene was now disclosed which the
spectators might almost fancy as having been created since they had
last looked in the direction where it lay. About half a mile distant,
in the lap of the valley, now appeared a beautiful lake, which
reflected a perfect image of its own wooded banks, and of the summits
of the more distant hills. It gleamed in glassy tranquillity, without
the trace of a winged breeze on any part of its bosom. Beyond its
farther shore was Monument Mountain, in a recumbent position,
stretching almost across the valley. Eustace Bright compared it to a
huge, headless sphinx, wrapped in a Persian shawl; and, indeed, so
rich and diversifi