"I can't say that I have ever received many--none that I recall,"
replied Brandon, with a perfectly straight face, but with a smile
trying its best to break out.

"Oh! you have not? Well! how would you like to have somebody always
telling you that Apollo was humpbacked and misshapen compared with
you; that Endymion would have covered his face had he but seen yours,
and so on?"

"I don't know, but I think I should like it--from some persons," he
replied, looking ever so innocent.

This savored of familiarity after so brief an acquaintance, and caused
the princess to glance up in slight surprise; but only for the
instant, for his innocent look disarmed her.

"I have a mind to see," she returned, laughing and throwing her head
back, as she looked up at him out of the corner of her lustrous eyes.
"But I will pay you a better compliment. I positively thank you for
the rebuke. I do many things like that, for which I am always sorry.
Oh! you don't know how difficult it is to be a good princess." And she
shook her head, with a gathering of little trouble-wrinkles in her
forehead, as much as to say, "There is no getting away from it,
though." Then she breathed a soft little sigh of tribulation as they
walked on.

"I know it must be a task to be good when everybody flatters even
one's shortcomings," said Brandon, and then continued in a way that, I
am free to confess, was something priggish: "It is almost impossible