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beggar such as this as well as the good Duke of Rochesnoires held you at the font when you were baptized; and your little sister, Honey-Bee, also had one of these poor creatures as godmother.”
    The old crone who seemed to have guessed the boy’s thoughts leaned towards him.
    â€œFair prince,” she cried mockingly, “may you conquer as many kingdoms as I have lost. I was the queen of the Island of Pearls and the Mountains of Gold; each day my table was served with fourteen different kinds of fish, and a negro page bore my train.”
    â€œAnd by what misfortune have you lost your islands and your mountains, good woman?” asked the Duchess.
    â€œI vexed the dwarfs, and they carried me far away from my dominions.”
    â€œAre the dwarfs so powerful?” George asked.
    â€œAs they live in the earth,” the old woman answered, “they know the virtue of precious stones, they work in metals, and they unseal the hidden sources of the springs.”
    â€œAnd what did you do to vex them?” asked the Duchess.
    â€œOn a December night,” said the old woman, “one of them came to ask permission to prepare a great midnight banquet in the kitchen of the castle, which, vaster than a chapter-house, was furnished with casseroles, frying-pans, earthen saucepans, kettles, pans, portable-ovens, gridirons, boilers, dripping-pans, dutch-ovens, fish-kettles, copper-pans, pastry-moulds, copper-jugs, goblets of gold and silver, and mottled wood, not to mention iron roasting-jacks, artistically forged, and the huge black cauldron which hung from the pothook. He promised neither to disturb nor to damage anything. I refused his request, and he disappeared muttering vague threats. The third night, it being Christmas, this same dwarf returned to the chamber where I slept. He was accompanied by innumerable others, who pulled me out of bed and carried me to an unknown land in my nightgown. ‘Such,’ they said as they left me, ‘such is the punishment of the rich who refuse even a part of their treasure to the industrious and kindly dwarf folk who work in gold and cause the springs to flow.’”
    Thus said the toothless old woman, and the Duchess having comforted her with words and money, she and the two children retraced their way to the castle.

VI
    Which tells of what can be seen from the Keep of Clarides
    It was one day shortly after this that Honey-Bee and George, without being observed, climbed the steps of the watch-tower which stands in the middle of the Castle of Clarides. Having reached the platform they shouted at the top of their voices and clapped their hands.
    Their view extended down the hillside divided into brown and green squares of cultivated fields. Woods and mountains lay dimly blue against the distant horizon.
    â€œLittle sister,” cried George, “little sister, look at the whole wide world!”
    â€œThe world is very big,” said Honey-Bee. “My teachers,” said George, “have taught me that it is very big; but, as Gertrude our housekeeper says, one must see to believe.”
    They went the round of the platform.
    â€œHere is something wonderful, little brother,” cried Honey-Bee. “The castle stands in the middle of the earth and we are on the watch-tower in the middle of the castle, and so we are standing in the middle of the earth. Ha! ha! ha!”
    And, indeed, the horizon formed a circle about the children of which the watch-tower was the centre.
    â€œWe are in the middle of the earth! Ha! ha! ha!” George repeated.
    Whereupon they both started a-thinking.
    â€œWhat a pity that the world is so big!” said Honey-Bee, “one might get lost and be separated from one’s friends.”
    George shrugged his shoulders.
    â€œHow lucky that the world is so big! One can go in search of adventures. When I am grown up I mean to conquer the mountains that stand at the ends of the earth. That is where the moon