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Rh a paltry ring is not worth so many tears. My dearest, when I go again to my father's kingdom I will buy you a dozen rings more beautiful than that which you have lost! So dry your eyes and think no more about it."

But the girl refused to be comforted.

"That ring," said she between her sobs, "is a magic one, and its loss will bring all manner of woe to us both."

Nor was she mistaken in this. The ring was borne along by the swift stream for a long distance and was finally washed ashore near the pleasure gardens of a great Khan. There some one found it and, seeing that it was a strange ring, curiously wrought, took it at once to the Khan himself. The monarch looked long upon it, and then, calling his ministers about him, he said:

"This trinket has magic power about it. I believe that it belongs to a very beautiful woman, perhaps the daughter of some king. Take it, therefore, and wheresoever