The young herons laughed and shouted and clapped their wings for joy. “Are you not happy now?” cried they. And when their parents saw the joy, not only in their children’s eyes, but in each other’s, and felt their hearts growing glad in the bodies they had regained, then they owned that the Feather-pates had been wise in their generation, and done well according to their lights. So it came about that the Prince and the Princess lived happily ever after, and the two young herons lived happily also, and were the best-hearted birds the world ever saw. In course of time the Prince and Princess had other children, who pleased the old King better than the first had done. But the parents loved none better than the two who lived as herons by the great fish-pond in the wood; nor could there be greater love than was found between these and their younger brothers and sisters, whose nature it was to be real persons. SYRINGA _TO_ DORA [Illustration] SYRINGA A great many years ago there lived a King who spent his days in travelling about to find the woman he could love and take to be his wife. Though the richest and most beautiful princesses offered him their hands in marriage, for none of them could he entertain the smallest affection. “It seems that I have had a dream,” he said. “Somewhere my Love is, but I have not found her yet!” In those days the country over which he was lord had two Kings, one reigned and the other ruled; and as long as this was so, since his brother-King who ruled was married, his councillors allowed him who merely reigned to wander about at will in pursuit of his strange fancy. When, however, the King who ruled died without leaving an heir, then those same councillors said, “This will not do; the State can wait no longer. Princes are born, and Kings die; love or no love, for your people’s sake you must marry!” “Then why does he not marry me?” said the Queen-widow of the King that ruled. The King that reigned said, “Rather than marry her I would marry my scullery-maid!” He became so terrified at the thought of her proposal that he took horse secretly by night, and rode away into the most secluded and uninhabited parts of his dominion. Now here, as he rode along over many miles of barren moor and hill, one day, crossing a high ridge, he met the wind coming softly up out of the valley below him, and its breath upon his face was full of the perfume of some sweet flower. At that his heart, which had been so long listless and sad, seemed to awake within him. “Flower of my dream!” he cried; and soon saw below him, nestling in a corner of the valley, a small garden half hidden in the embrace of tall girdling trees.