"This instant," repeated Polydectes, "or you die!"

"Behold it, then!" cried Perseus, in a voice like the blast of a
trumpet.

And, suddenly holding up the head, not an eyelid had time to wink before
the wicked King Polydectes, his evil counsellors, and all his fierce
subjects were no longer anything but the mere images of a monarch and
his people. They were all fixed, forever, in the look and attitude of
that moment! At the first glimpse of the terrible head of Medusa, they
whitened into marble! And Perseus thrust the head back into his wallet,
and went to tell his dear mother that she need no longer be afraid of
the wicked King Polydectes.



TANGLEWOOD PORCH.

AFTER THE STORY.

"Is not that a very fine story?" asked Eustace.

"O yes, yes!" cried Cowslip, clapping her hands. "And those funny old
women, with only one eye amongst them! I never heard of anything so
strange."

"As to their one tooth, which they shifted about," observed Primrose,
"there was nothing so very wonderful in that. I suppose it was a false
tooth. But think of your turning Mercury into Quicksilver, and talking