And it was from thence the travelers were to leave. It was like a morning in Wonderland. The great valley on which the palace looked down, and along which the Princes were to travel, was that morning filled with vapor. And the vapor lay, as far as the eye could reach, without a break on its surface, or a ruffled edge, in the light of the rising sun, like a sea of liquid silver. The hills that surrounded the palace looked like so many giants sitting on the shores of a mighty sea. It was into this sea the travelers had to descend. One by one, with their companions, they bade the old King farewell. And then, stepping forth from the palace gates and descending toward the valley, they disappeared from view.

The country to which they were going lay many days' distance between the Purple Mountains and the Green Sea. The road to it lay through woods and stretches of corn and pasture land. It was Autumn. In every field were reapers cutting or binding the corn. At every turn of the road were wagons laden with sheaves. Then the scene changed. The land became poor. The fields were covered with crops that were thin and unripe. The people who passed on the road had a look of want on their faces. The travelers passed on. Every eye was searching the horizon for the first glimpse of the mountain peaks. In every heart was the joyful hope of finding the Golden Age. Can you think what the joy of a young student going for the first time to a university is? It was a joy like his. While this joy was in their hearts, the road passed into a mighty forest. And suddenly among the shadows of the trees a miserable spectacle crossed their path. It was a crowd of peasants of the very poorest class. A plague had fallen on their homes, and they were fleeing from their village, which lay among the trees a mile or two to the right.

Yestergold was the first to meet them. He was filled with anguish. His sensitive nature could not bear to see suffering in others. He shrank from the very sight of misery. Turning to his companions, he said, "If the Lord of Life had been traveling on this road as He was on that other, long ago, when the widow of Nain met Him with her dead son, He would have destroyed the plague by a word." "Oh, holy and beautiful Age!" exclaimed the poet, "why dost thou lie in thy soft swathings of light, and power to do mighty deeds, so far behind us in the past?" "But let us use it as a golden background," said the painter. "That is the beautiful Age on which Art is called to portray the Divine form of the Great Physician!" Saying these fine words, the party rode swiftly past.

The terrified villagers were still streaming across the road when Goldmorrow came up. Nothing could exceed the pity which the spectacle stirred in his breast. Tears streamed from his eyes. The bareness, the poverty, the misery of the present time seemed to come into view and gather into a point in what he saw. "Oh!" he cried to his companions, "if Christ were only come! Only He could deal with evils so great as these!" Then, withdrawing his thoughts into himself, and still moved with his humane pity, he breathed this prayer to Christ: "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, and lay thy healing hand on the wounds and sorrows of the world." His companions were also touched with what they saw. And in earnest and reverent words one of them exclaimed: "Blessed hope! Light of the pilgrim! Star of the weary! The earth has waited long thy absent light to see." But, by the time the words were spoken, the villagers were behind them, and, spurring their horses, the travelers hastened forward on their way.

IV.

A PLAGUE-STRICKEN VILLAGE.

The dust raised by their horses' hoofs was still floating over the highway when Goldenday, with his sister and their attendants, rode up to the spot. Two or three groups of the fugitives had made a temporary home for the night under the shelter of the trees on the left. Others were still arriving. The pale faces, the terrified looks of the villagers, filled the Prince with concern. "It is the pestilence," they said, in answer to his inquiries. "The pestilence, good sir, and it is striking us dead in the very streets of our village." The Prince turned to his sister. She was already dismounted. A light was in her eye which at once went to his heart. The two understood each other. They knew that it was Christ and not merely a crowd of terrified peasants who had met them. They were His eyes that looked out at them through the tear-filled eyes of the peasantry. It was His voice that appealed to them in their cries and anguish. He seemed to be saying to them: "Inasmuch as ye do it to one of the least of these, ye do it unto Me." In a few moments the Prince had halted his party and unpacked his stores, and was supplying the wants of the groups on the left. Before an hour was past he had brought light into their faces by his words of cheer, and, with his sister and his servants, was on his way to the plague-stricken village.

Most pitiable was the scene which awaited him there. People were really dying in the streets, as he had been told. Some were already dead. A mother had died in front of her cottage, and her little children sat crying beside her body. Another, with a look of despair in her eyes, sat rocking the dead body of the child. The men seemed to have fled.

The Prince's plans were soon formed. He had stores enough to last his party and himself for a year. He would share these with the villagers as far as they would go. He had tents also for the journey. He would use these for a home to his own party and for hospitals for the sick. Before the sun had set, the tents for his own party were erected on a breezy height outside the village. And, ere the sun had arisen the next morning, the largest tent of all had been set in a place by itself, ready to receive the sick.

Goldenday and his sister never reached the country where the images of all the Ages are to be found. A chance of doing good met them on their journey, and they said to each other, "It has been sent to us by God." They turned aside that they might make it their own. They spent the year in the deeds of mercy to which it called them among the plague-stricken villagers.

It would take too long to tell all that this good Prince and his sister achieved in that year. The village lay in a hollow among dense woods and on the edge of a stagnant marsh. The Prince had the marsh drained and the woods thinned. Every house in the village was thoroughly repaired and cleaned. The sick people were taken up to the tent-hospital and cared for until they got well. The men who had fled returned. The terrified mothers ventured back. The sickness began to slacken. In a few months it disappeared. Then the Prince caused wells to be dug to supply water for drinking. Then he built airy schools for the children. Last of all he repaired the church, which had fallen into ruin, and trained a choir of boys to sing thanks to God. But when all these things had been accomplished, the year during which he was to have searched for the Golden Age was within a few weeks of its close. And, what was worse, it was too plain to his sister that the Prince's health had suffered by his toils. Night and day he had labored in his service of love. Night and day he had carried the burden of the sickness and infirmities of the village in his heart. It had proved a burden greater than he could bear. He had toiled on till he saw health restored to every home. He toiled until he saw the village itself protected from a second visitation of the plague. But his own strength was meanwhile ebbing away. The grateful villagers observed with grief how heavily their deliverer had to lean on his sister's arm in walking. And tears, which they strove in vain to conceal, would gather in their eyes as they watched the voice that had so often cheered them sinking