An hour later Princess Beauty and Prince Udo, who was not her brother, gazed into each other's eyes; and Beauty's last illusion went. "You've altered," she said slowly. "Yes, I'm not REALLY much like a tortoise," said Udo humorously. "I meant since seven years ago. You're much stouter than I thought." "Time hasn't exactly stood still with you, you know, Beauty." "Yet you saw me every day, and went on loving me." "Well-er--" He shuffled his feet and looked away. "DIDN'T you?" "Well, you see--of course I wanted to get back, you see--and as long as you--I mean if we--if you thought we were in love with each other, then, of course, you were ready to help me. And so--" "You're quite old and bald. I can't think why I didn't notice it before." "Well, you wouldn't when I was a tortoise," said Udo pleasantly. "As tortoises go I was really quite a youngster. Besides, anyhow one never notices baldness in a tortoise." "I think," said Beauty, weighing her words carefully, "I think you've gone off a good deal in looks in the last day or two." . . . . . . . Charming was home in time for dinner; and next morning he was more popular than ever (outside his family) as he rode through the streets of the city. But Blunderbus lay dead in his castle. You and I know that he was killed by the magic sword; yet somehow a strange legend grew up around his death. And ever afterwards in that country, when one man told his neighbour a more than ordinarily humorous anecdote, the latter would cry, in between the gusts of merriment, "Don't! You'll make me die of laughter!" And then he would pull himself together, and add with a sigh--"Like Blunderbus." AN ODD LOT THE COMING OF THE CROCUS "IT'S a bootiful day again, Sir," said my gardener, James, looking in at the study window. "Bootiful, James, bootiful," I said, as I went on with my work. "You might almost say as spring was here at last, like." "Cross your fingers quickly, James, and touch wood. Look here, I'll be out in a minute and give you some orders, but I'm very busy just now." "Thought praps you'd like to know there's eleven crocuses in the front garden." "Then send them away--we've got nothing for them." "Crocuses," shouted James. I jumped up eagerly, and climbed through the window. "My dear man," I said, shaking him warmly by the hand, "this is indeed a day. Crocuses! And in the front gar--on the south lawn! Let us go and gaze at them." There they were--eleven of them. Six golden ones, four white, and a little mauve chap. "This is a triumph for you, James. It's wonderful. Has anything like this ever happened to you before?" "There'll be some more up to-morrow, I won't say as not." "Those really are growing, are they? You haven't been pushing them in from the top? They were actually born on the estate?" "There'll be a fine one in the back bed soon," said James proudly.