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“I would not do such a wicked thing as to put anybody in fiction who did not want to go there,” gravely replied the Husband of Euphemia.

At these words the load that was on Pomona’s mind dropped from it entirely.

“Now, sir,” said she, “we’ve got another thing to say; and it will seem queer to you after what we’ve said already. We do want to go into fiction, but not the way we was in it before. The fact is that between us we’ve written a story, and we’ve brought it with us, hoping you wouldn’t mind letting Jone read it to you. Of course we was expecting to read it to only two; but as we’ve got to go back to-day, if the rest of the folks don’t mind, Jone can read it anyway.”

“I should like it above all things!” exclaimed the Next Neighbor.

“We will not let you go away until it is read,” said the Mistress of the House.

“Oh, I do want to hear it!” cried the Daughter of the House.

“Of course Jonas must read it,” was Euphemia’s quiet comment.

“Heave ahead!” called out the Master of the House.

Pomona smiled gratefully. “It isn’t a very long story, but we’ve been a long time working at it, and we wouldn’t think of such a thing as calling it finished until our friends has heard it.”

The quiet and good-natured Jonas now drew a manuscript from his pocket and began.

“The name of my story,” said he, “is ‘The Foreign Prince and the Hermit’s Daughter.'”

“We thought of a good many other names for it,” said Pomona, “and I wanted to call it ‘The Groundless Prince’; but Jone he said that groundless applies to things there is no reason for, and as so many princes are of that kind, somebody’s feelings might be hurt. And so I gave in.”

“Now this is the way the story begins,” said Jonas. “In that period of time which is not modern, and yet is not too far back, and in which a great many out-of-the-way things have happened, a certain young Prince went travelling in foreign parts of the world with the general purpose of broadening his mind. He wanted to study the manners and customs of other nations in order that he might better know how to govern his own people.

“But when, after several years’ absence, he came back to the place of his nativity, he found that neighboring nations had made war upon his country–that they had conquered his army and subjugated his people, and had partitioned his principality among themselves. Consequently he found himself in a strange position: he had gone forth to visit foreign lands, and now he returned to find himself a foreigner on the very spot where he was born. In fact, his nationality had been swept away; his country had disappeared.

“But he was still a prince. Nothing could deprive him of his noble birth. But to all the world, save to one person, he was an alien prince, and must always so continue. The exception was a Single Adherent, who had followed him when he began his travels, and whose loyal spirit would not suffer him to leave his master now.

“Slowly, with crossed arms and head bent low, the Prince strode away from the place that had once been his home, his Single Adherent following his footsteps.

“After a long day’s journey they came to a little valley chiefly remarkable for streams and rocks. Here, at the entrance of a commodious cave, he beheld an elderly hermit seated upon a stone, calmly surveying the sunset sky. The hermit looked up with a pleasant smile, for it had been long since a traveller had passed that way; and, perceiving that the stranger was not only well-bred but tired, invited him to take a seat upon a stone near by his own, at the same time motioning the Adherent to a smaller stone at a little distance.