What was usually a king's breakfast in the days of Midas, I really do
not know, and cannot stop now to investigate. To the best of my belief,
however, on this particular morning, the breakfast consisted of hot
cakes, some nice little brook trout, roasted potatoes, fresh boiled
eggs, and coffee, for King Midas himself, and a bowl of bread and milk
for his daughter Marygold. At all events, this is a breakfast fit to set
before a king; and, whether he had it or not, King Midas could not have
had a better.
Little Marygold had not yet made her appearance. Her father ordered her
to be called, and, seating himself at table, awaited the child's coming,
in order to begin his own breakfast. To do Midas justice, he really
loved his daughter, and loved her so much the more this morning, on
account of the good fortune which had befallen him. It was not a great
while before he heard her coming along the passageway crying bitterly.
This circumstance surprised him, because Marygold was one of the
cheerfullest little people whom you would see in a summer's day, and
hardly shed a thimbleful of tears in a twelvemonth. When Midas heard her
sobs, he determined to put little Marygold into better spirits, by an
agreeable surprise; so, leaning across the table, he touched his
daughter's bowl (which was a china one, with pretty figures all around
it), and transmuted it to gleaming gold.
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