"No, child," solemnly answered the griffin. "I know by your ironical
smile that you have discovered the truth--that I am nothing but a
griffin. But if the skaters believe in me, why undeceive them? Why
should magpies and zebras have any thing better to reign over them?"

"But do you not see how thin the ice is? You will surely break
through some day."

"I know it," he replied. "A good strong trampling, and we are all
scattered far and wide. But I keep the tigers and hyenas at work, and
the more sagacious elephants bear their burdens in quiet, and let me
alone. If there be a lion among them, he roars so gently it does no
harm. And you must be a good girl, and keep silence. I see that you
also wear a crown, and you know how heavy it is."

"Yes, and it is of brass too, like yours. I am trying to free myself
from it," answered Rosamond. "But I do not care for your peacocks and
parrots, and will not tell them yours is not of gold; so do not be
afraid;" and off she went, leaving his majesty in a very uneasy state
of mind. But he had nothing to fear from her, for although she did not
cry, "Vive l'Empereur!" when he skated gorgeously by, she never
revealed the fact that he was only a long-clawed griffin.

Rosamond might have staid a long time in Paris, so amused was she by
all the gay plumage and dazzling confusion around her; but she soon
found that she was dying of starvation. She had always heard French
dishes and bon-bons most highly extolled, and now she found they were
nothing but dry leaves and husks, served up very prettily, to be sure,
but with no nourishment in them. So she looked on the map again, and