“King? No, not I. I am a magician,” was the proud reply. “Only let me have a quiet tower where no one ever slams the doors or interrupts me when I am making my calculations, and I would not give a fig for all the gold and jewels in the castle. But come, now, and let us go down into the dungeons. There may be some one else shut up there.” Down into the dungeons they went. The giant’s keys were sticking in the door of the dungeon where the magician had been shut up. Room after room was unlocked, but no one was to be seen. “We must have been the only prisoners,” said the magician. “There seem to be no more rooms.” “I thought I saw a little door out of that dark place under the stairs,” Hansel said. “Maybe that’s a room.” “We’ll see,” said the magician, and he tried key after key, but none of them fitted. “I fancy there’s a touch of magic about this,” he said thoughtfully. “Some magician must have been here and made this lock. There’s one thing sure, what magic has done, magic can undo.” He drew a circle entirely around the little door and wrote some mysterious figures and signs within it. He had hardly finished the last one before the door flung itself open. There stood a tall, stately man, and by his side was a beautiful woman with her arm thrown closely around a young girl two or three years older than Hansel. Now comes the strangest part of the whole story and the one that is hardest to believe, for these three people proved to be Hansel’s father and mother and sister. They had really been stolen away by trolls, as their friends thought, and had been put into the dungeon of the giants for safe-keeping. The trolls had been overcome by other trolls who were stronger than they and put to death. The giants were not used to remembering things, and they had forgotten all about their prisoners. Luckily, Hansel’s father had some magic food in his pockets, or else they would have starved long before. There they were, alive and well; and now Hansel, the lonely little boy whom nobody wanted, had a father and mother and sister, a powerful friend, and rooms upon rooms filled with gold and silver from floor to ceiling. The doors of the castle keep were flung wide open. The sun shone in and the sweet, strong wind blew through and through it until every corner was fresh and pure. Little flowers began to grow in the courtyard. They showed their faces timidly at first, but soon there were great companies of them, bright and cheery and happy as ever flowers could be. Vines ran up the walls and peered over into the very keep of the castle. Some even slipped in through the gratings of the dungeons to see what kind of places they were. Night and day the gates stood open, for there were no enemies to be afraid of. Hansel grew into a tall young man, and he ruled the country so kindly and wisely that the people declared there never was in all the wide world so good a sovereign as their own King Hansel the First. THE STAR PRINCESS THE STAR PRINCESS