Far below the mountain crag lay the sea. In the night, while it slept,
it had looked dark blue or violet, but now it was slowly changing its
color. The sky was changing too--it was growing paler and paler--next it
grew faintly brighter, so did the sea; then a slight flush crept over
land and water and all the small floating clouds were rosy pink. King
Amor smiled because birds' voices were to be heard in the trees and
bushes, and something golden bright was rising out of the edge of the
ocean, and sparkling light danced on the waves. It rose higher and
higher and grew so dazzling and wonderful that he threw out his little
hand with a shout of joy. The next moment he started back because there
rose near him a loud whirr and beating of powerful wings as a great bird
flew out of a crag near by and soared high into the radiant morning
heavens.

"It is the eagle who is our neighbor," said the Ancient One. "He has
awakened and gone to give his greeting to the sun."

And as the little King sat upright, enraptured, he saw that from the
dazzling brightness at the edge of the world there leaped forth a ball
of living gold and fire, and even he knew that the sun had risen.

"At every day's dawn it leaps forth like that," said the Ancient One.
"Let us watch together and I will tell you stories of it."

So they sat by the battlement and the stories were told. They were
stories of the small grains lying hid in the dark earth waiting for the
golden heat of the sun to draw them forth into life until they covered
the tilled fields with waving wheat to make bread for the world; they
were stories of the seeds of fair flowers warmed and ripened until they