Until you see her yellow eye, To open this you must not try.

Priscilla had heard of Portsmouth often; indeed, she had sailed over there once during the summer. But how should she get there now? "Mama," she said, sitting up very straight, "I have to go to Portsmouth to see my godmother's cat. Will you and papa take me there? Shall we get off at the next station ?" Mr. Blake laughed at her excited face.

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Certainly, your Royal Highness," he answered, with another bow; " we are entirely at your disposal; but don't you think the second or third station will do ?"

"Stop!" said Mrs. Blake; "you should not tease her. Portsmouth is the second or third station beyond here, Priscilla. We change cars there."

"Why, is n't that lucky!" said the delighted princess; and she could n't understand why her "royal" parents laughed.

It was not long before they rolled into the dingy, covered depot; and, sure enough, out they all got. Priscilla pulled at her father's hand, her eyes traveling in every direction. There was a confusion of trains and people, baggage-men and express-carts. Where could they find a cat, in all this bustle?

"Oh, papa!" cried the agonized princess, "where do you suppose she is? Don't you think we had better go out into the street ?"

Mr. Blake did not answer, but he led Priscilla over to the door of the station restaurant. He had been to Portsmouth a great many times, and so had Aunt Alice; and so, perhaps, his little daughter was more surprised than they would have been to see on one of the windowsills a huge gray cat fast asleep in the sun. And when Priscilla, with a little scream of delight, ran over to her, she opened her big yellow eyes, and looked so wise that it seemed as if she surely must understand. "Oh, pussy, I am obeying my instructions beautifully," whispered the little girl; and then added rather timidly: "Are you really a fairy, pussy?" But the big cat blinked her eyes like any ordinary cat, and would not answer a word.

"Come, dear," said her father; "we must get into the car now"; and she was led away all

too soon; but, as her papa said, "Trains will not wait, even for princesses."

As soon as they were once more settled, Priscilla opened the envelope with the verses outside. Out came another envelope, and more poetry. How exciting it was! Where should she have to go next? This was what the rhyme said:

Be patient, Princess; watch and wait.
Another messenger I'm sending.
There's far to go and much to do

Before your task can have its ending.
There is a boy in Hampton town
I've told him near the track to hover,
And wave his hat (he may forget),

To tell you when to break this cover.

"I never heard of Hampton town," cried Priscilla. "How can I go there, papa?" Mr. Blake took the packet and read.

"Well," said he teasingly, "these instructions tell you to 'watch and wait.' Perhaps Hampton town will come to you, if you sit still."

But Mrs. Blake could never bear to see her small daughter teased, though Priscilla herself did n't mind it at all. "This train goes through Hampton," she explained; 66 we shall be there in a very few moments."

"I

Then a new idea occurred to Priscilla. do believe this train will go to all the places," cried she, "so that I can get to them faster."

"I should n't be surprised," said her father, with a smile.

"Fairy godmothers do arrange things so beautifully!"- and the princess sighed happily.

When the train had passed North Hampton station, and they were really in "Hampton town," even Mrs. Blake and her husband found themselves looking for "the boy." The country slid along past the windows: sunlit fields and scattered houses, salt-marshes dotted with haystacks, once in a while a man or woman, but never a boy. It was not until they drew up at Hampton station that the princess gave a start of delight and clapped her hands. "Oh, there he is!" she cried; and, sure enough, there he was, a jolly-faced country boy, leaning against the station wall, with his hands in his pockets. The car stopped so that Pris

cilla's window was almost opposite him; and though he did n't wave his hat, he looked up and grinned at her in the most knowing way. It really was n't surprising, she was nodding and smiling at him in such a friendly manner; but it filled Priscilla with the wildest excitement. “Oh, mama," she cried, "may n't I open the window and ask him if he really knows Aunt Alice?"

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But Mr. Blake laughed at her suggestion, and Priscilla sat down, with her face very red. Well," said she rather soberly, "of course I know he does n't; but, somehow, it seems as if he must."

And then her father begged her Highness's pardon very humbly, and admitted that the boy had seemed remarkably friendly. "Only," he added mischievously, "it does seem queer for a fairy messenger to be chewing gum." And then her highness deigned to smile once more. Priscilla was not surprised to find another envelope inside the last one. This one was the size of an ordinary note, and it said:

Now, Princess, see you listen well!
From this time on, without cessation,
Count all the horses on the road

Until you reach the Ipswich station; For when you 've done so 't is the token, That there this cover may be broken.

Priscilla curled herself up close to the window. No horse on the road that day could have escaped her sharp eyes. She saw ever so many,- brown, black, and white ones,- and all the time she kept wondering which one was the fairy messenger.

I never saw the child so still," said Mrs. Blake softly. "She is usually so restless on a journey that she wears me out."

"But this is an enchanted journey," said her husband; and it really seemed so to Priscilla. It seemed hardly any time at all before they passed Ipswich, and she could look for her next message:

Well, Princess, there's a little dog
Somewhere between this place and Lynn.
Your task is done when him you find.
Then look this envelope within,

And lo! you'll see there at your pleasure
The key which will reveal the treasure.

Priscilla sighed with satisfaction. A key!. of course it was a key! Now that the larger envelopes were gone, she could feel the shape of it distinctly.

While she watched for the dog messenger, she busied her brain trying to think what sort of treasure could be locked up with so very small a key. It was such a puzzling question that for a long time she did not realize that no dog was coming in sight. Then suddenly she heard her mother say: "Why, George, we are almost at Lynn, and I actually have n't seen a dog. I've been so interested I have watched all the way along."

It was certainly strange. What had happened to all the dogs, big and little, that afternoon, nobody knows; but in spite of the most anxious watching, the train steamed presently into the dark Lynn station, and never a dog had they spied. It seemed as if even a fairy godmother's well-laid plans could fail.

Poor Priscilla, who had not lost hope up to the very last moment, was quivering with distress and excitement. When the train really came to a standstill, her papa, almost as disappointed as she, took her out upon the platform, and they walked along, looking anxiously in every direction. But it was all of no avail !

When they heard the brakeman shout, "All aboard!" and Mr. Blake lifted his little daughter into the car again, her heart seemed ready to break. Then, just at that last instant, they suddenly heard the sound of a dog barkinga short, sharp, puppy bark! It seemed to come from inside the station.

Priscilla nearly tumbled off the car in her excitement. "I must go back, papa!" she cried; "I must go back!"

But it was impossible; the train was going too fast already, and never a glimpse of a nose or a tail could they see, though they could still hear that sharp, excited barking until they were really off and away.

Priscilla sat up very straight and still. Her eyes were suspiciously bright.

Mr. Blake took the envelope, and read the fated message over again. "It's my opinion," said he very gravely, without looking at the pathetic little figure opposite, “that, for some reason best known to himself, that fairy messen

[This story was begun in the November number.]

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CAVE OF THE BATS.

THE resinous smoke of the torches relieved the subterraneous atmosphere somewhat of its offensive animal odor, and the flames flooded the walls and ceiling with light. Their voices, calling to each other as they advanced, sounded abnormally loud, and seemed to fill the space about them with a cavernous ring in which they detected no side echoes that would indicate lateral chambers branching off from the main passage. By the current of air flaring the torches back toward the opening they had made, they knew that the passage itself must be open to the day at its other end. The roof seemed to be about eight feet above their heads,

although at times it drew nearer, and occasionally it retired to a greater altitude, but never beyond the searching illumination of their torches.

Presently, as they advanced, their attention was drawn to brown masses of something like fungi clinging to the rock overhead, but 'partaking so closely of the color and texture of the stone that they seemed, after all, to be but flinty lumps on the roof. As Bromley, who was in front, came to a point where the ceiling swung so low as to be within reach, he swept the flame of his torch across one of these brown patches, and straightway the stifling air was filled with a squeaking, unearthly chorus, and with the beating of innumerable wings. Scorched by the flame and blinded by the light, many of these disabled creatures, which proved to be a colony of bats, fluttered to the