then,” said Jack hastily, “let me have these old spectacles.”[18]

[18]

The pedlar laughed louder than ever.

“Those spectacles will make you see to any part of the world, and see through stone or iron as easily as through glass,” he said; “there—take both!”

And putting the two into Jack’s hand he vanished—and he did it quite easily, because he was a magician.

So now Jack’s fortune was made; he could see where gold and precious stones lay under the earth and he could cut away the rocks that covered them as though they were butter.

So he was rewarded for his kind-heartedness.

But the greatest reward of all came to him when the Princess of that land was carried off and hidden by an enchanter. And the King, after vainly offering all sorts of other prizes, at last said that any man who could find the Princess and set her free should marry her.

So Jack put on his spectacles and saw the Princess sitting crying in a lonely tower. It was a year’s journey off, but he made the journey, and wherever he was, he put on his spectacles again and looked at the[19] beautiful Princess, and that gave him courage.

[19]

At last he came to the tower, and with his magic knife he cut through the iron door and set the Princess free, and with the same knife he killed the wicked enchanter.

Then he took the Princess home in triumph and the grateful pedlar came to the wedding-feast.

 E. Nesbit. 

[20]

[20]

 The Little Lost Doll.

The Little Lost Doll.

SHE was lost as they went through the wood. How it happened nobody quite knew, but they supposed she must have tumbled out of the perambulator as Kitty pushed it through the ferns and long grasses, and so poor Dolly was left there, lying on her back, staring up at as much sky as was visible through the fern-fronds, and the foxglove leaves, and the branches of the trees overhead.

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