the head disappeared up the chimney. Then the phantom beauty, uttering a shrill, dismal scream, melted into air--and the enchantment was dissolved forever. At that moment Prince Violet heard a voice from the skies, as tuneful as the music of the spheres, saying, "Well done, my prince, the death of the wicked enchanter was necessary to the recovery of thy lost gold-fish--for while he lived thou wouldst never have seen it again. Go on--thy destiny ere long will be accomplished." A strain of aerial music succeeded, which gradually faded into whispering zephyrs, bearing on their wings the mingled perfume of a thousand flowers. The prince took possession of the castle by right of conquest; and when the people over whom the enchanter had reigned with a cruel and despotic sway heard of the gallantry with which he had rid them of their tyrant, they gathered themselves together, and with one voice chose him for their king. Prince Violet proved an excellent sovereign; but, though he made his subjects happy, he partook not in what he so freely bestowed on others. The recollection of the little gold-fish, and of the beautiful princess he had so often seen in his dreams, was ever present, and poisoned his days and nights with perpetual sorrows. Though courted by King Grabyall, and all the surrounding potentates, who had grown up daughters, he declined their advances, passing most of his leisure hours in wandering along the river he had followed in his journey, and which flowed just at the foot of the terrace of his stately castle. He remembered that it issued from the aperture through which he had emerged from the crystal basin, and constantly fed his sickly fancy with the hope that the little gold-fish might have vanished in the same direction. If so, it was probably still in the river, if it lived at all; and he was perpetually bending over the stream, watching the gambols of the finny tribes, to see if he could not detect among them his lost wanderer.