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and twenty waggoners, with horses and waggons, were carrying the wood away. “Oh! chair of my grandmother, stop!” said Snowflower, for she was tired, and also wished to know what this might mean. The chair immediately stood still, and Snowflower, seeing an old woodcutter who looked civil, stepped up to him, and said, “Good father, tell me why you cut all this wood?”

“What ignorant country girl are you?” replied the man, “not to have heard of the great feast which our sovereign, King Winwealth, means to give on the birthday of his only daughter, the Princess Greedalind. It will last seven days. Everybody will be feasted, and this wood is to roast the oxen and the sheep, the geese and the turkeys, amongst whom there is a great lamentation throughout the land.”

When Snowflower heard that she could not help wishing to see, and perhaps share in, such a noble feast, after living so long on barley cakes; so, seating herself, she said, “Chair of my grandmother, take me quickly to the palace of King Winwealth.”

The words were hardly spoken, when off the chair started through the trees and out of the forest, to the great amazement of the woodcutters, who, never having seen such a sight before, threw down their axes, left their waggons, and followed