made to look as well as she could, he set forth with her to meet the King and Queen, who were to meet the young couple a few miles from their home.

When his father and mother perceived the folly their son had committed, and how that he who had travelled so far in search of a white dove had only returned with a black crow, they could hardly restrain their disgust and disappointment. But, seeing the thing was done, and that there was no help for it, they abandoned their throne to the young couple, and a gold crown was placed on the slave's woolly head. The wedding was held with much pomp and ceremony, and everyone far and wide was invited to the feast.

Now it happened that while the King's cook was preparing all the dainty dishes for the wedding banquet a beautiful dove

wrung its neck, and, when he had plucked its feathers, he threw them out of the kitchen window. A few days afterwards, on the spot where the feathers had been thrown, a beautiful lemon tree sprang up, which grew and blossomed as you looked at it.

Now it happened one day that the King was looking out of his window, and saw the tree, which he never remembered to have noticed before. He immediately called the cook before him, and asked him when and by whom the tree had been planted. When he had heard the whole story from the chief cook, he gave orders that no one, under pain of death, should touch the tree, and that it should be tended and watered carefully every day.

In a very short time three lemons appeared on the tree exactly the same as those the old woman had given the Prince, and he had them plucked at once and brought to his room. Here he shut himself up with

flew in at the kitchen window, and said"Tell me, cook, oh! tell me true,

What do the King and his black bride do?" At first the cook paid no attention to the words of the bird; but when the dove had repeated them a second and a third time, he ran into the banqueting hall, and told the assembled company what the bird had said. When the bride heard the words of the dove's song, she ordered the bird to be caught on the spot and roasted. The cook did as he was told, seized the bird, and

a tumbler full of water, and with the same knife that he had used before, and which he always wore at his side, he began to cut the lemons in half. As before, the first and second fairy escaped him; but when he had cut the third lemon open, and given the fairy some water to drink, as she requested, she changed into the beautiful girl whom he had left behind in the hollow of the tree, and from her he learnt the whole history of the black slave's misdeeds.

The King's joy was beyond words at this new stroke of fortune, and he could hardly realise that his bride was really the beautiful girl who stood before him, and not the ugly black creature who had deceived him so wickedly. After he had dressed her in the most costly garments, and kissed her tenderly, he took his fairy bride by the hand, and led her into the throne-room, where all the Court were assembled. Then the King addressed his courtiers, and said: "Tell me, all of you, what punishment does the person deserve who has ill-, treated this beautiful lady?" Whereupon one replied, "They deserve a breakfast of stones"; another, "A draught of poison"; and a third said, "They should be rolled down a hill in a barrel with sharp spikes inside it."

At last the King called the black Queen to him, and asked her what punishment she would propose.

"The wicked creature," she answered, "who could harm so

fair a vision should be burnt to death, and her ashes scattered to the four winds.”

When the King heard her words, he said: "You have pronounced your own doom, for it was you, and no other, you vile wretch, who did my beautiful bride so much wrong. Know now that this is the lovely maid whose head you pierced with your hairpin, and she, too, was the beautiful dove you had so cruelly caught and roasted. But as you have done unto others,

REAKS of vegetables, especially of turnips, radishes, parsnips, and the like, have probably been observed from time to time by most people, though very rarely in such distinct and striking forms as in these instances, which have been recorded in old prints.

The radish, which we give first, grew in a sandy soil at Haarlem, more than two hundred years ago, and was painted in fac-simile by Jacob Penoy, one of whose friends presented the picture to Glandorp in the year 1672. This picture was engraved by Kirby, showing the root exactly as we reproduce

The last of our illustrations is a turnip with a face, a plumed head-dress, body,

it here. Nor is this the only instance in which the root of a radish has taken this particular form, as another, exactly resembling a human hand, with fingers and thumb complete, was possessed by Mr. Bisset, Secretary to the Birmingham Museum, in 1802.

Our second illustration represents a parsnip, which also strikingly resembles a hand, but in a different position, as it appears to be grasping another root. This oddity was sold by a market woman in the ordinary course of business, and was passed from hand to hand as a curiosity until it came into the possession of an engraver, who made the drawing of it which we give.

If any of our readers should come across any "Vegetable Oddities" of this kind, we shall be pleased if they will send them to us for inspection, so that, if they are sufficiently curious, we may illustrate them. in these pages.