| grew in the garden of the Hesperides ! ? Ah,
those were such apples as would bring a great
price, by the bushel, if any of them could be found grow-
ing in the orchards of nowadays! But there is not, I
suppose, a graft of that wonderful fruit on a single tree
in the wide world. Not so much as a seed of those
apples exists any longer.

And, even in the old, old, half-forgotten times, before
the garden of the Hesperides was overrun with weeds,
a great many people doubted whether there could be real
trees that bore apples of solid gold upon their branches.
All had heard of them, but nobody remembered to have
seen any. Children, nevertheless, used to listen, open-
mouthed, to stories of the golden apple-tree, and re-
solved to discover it, when they should be big enough.
Adventurous young men, who desired to do a braver
thing than any of their fellows, set out in quest of this
fruit. Many of them returned no more; none of them

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