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 94 care of; he was never permitted to go out in the sun or rain, he had good food and good clothes, and he was not allowed to sit in a draught or get his feet wet.

At the end of some months the Wuzeer sent for him into a marble court-yard, the floor of which he caused to be sprinkled with water.

The Shepherd had been for some time so little used to exposure of any kind, that wetting his feet caused him to take cold; the place felt to him chilly and damp after the Palace; he rapidly became worse, and in a short time, in spite of all the doctor's care, he died.

'Where is our friend the Shepherd?' asked the Rajah a few days afterwards; 'he surely could not have caught cold by merely treading on the marble floor you had caused to be sprinkled with water?'

'Alas!' answered the Wuzeer, 'the result was more disastrous than I had anticipated; the poor Shepherd caught cold, and is dead. Having been lately accustomed to overmuch care, the sudden change of temperature killed him.

'You see now to what dangers we are exposed from which the poor are exempt. It is thus that Nature equalises her best gifts; wealth and opulence tend too frequently to destroy health and shorten life, though they may give much enjoyment to it whilst it lasts.'