As he sped, through the sky, a flash of gold and crimson, the lesser birds gathered to wonder and admire.  Flocks of them followed at a distance, a train of worshipers, chorusing the glory of the new-born wonder.  He bore his head high with its burden, and his heart was filled with pious joy.  It was good to be a Phoenix, good, good!

At last he reached the place which unknowingly he sought.  The Sun alone had been his guide.  To the city of Heliopolis in Egypt he came; to the great Temple of the Sun, brightly adorned with crimson and gold, the Phoenix colors.

There upon the altar he laid the precious ashes.  And lo!  There were folk waiting to receive them,—­many little children, and some elders of childlike heart, who took the ashes and laid them reverently in the shrine.  The Phoenix was not forgotten; he was never to be forgotten so long as the world should last.

The new Phoenix flew back to the Arabian desert to live his five hundred years as each of his race had done, sacred, afar, and apart, but not forgotten, though in his old age he might come to deem so.  For in the bright Temple of the Sun there are always folk of childlike sympathy who delight to honor the eternal Phoenix of romance and mystery,—­the dear, undying memory of a time long past.

The Riverside Press Electrotyped and printed by H.O.  Houghton & Co. Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.