PLEASE may I have another piece of plum-cake?” asked Ray.  
“No, dear,” answered Aunt Polly. “I am afraid you have had more than is good for you already.”
 
“Just one little, teeney, weeney piece,” pleaded Ray.
 
“No, dear, not any more to-day.”
 
When Aunt Polly said these last words in her firm, pleasant voice, Ray’s sunny face clouded. I am sorry to say that he pouted¹ and did not look at all like the kind of boy he really was.
 
You must know that he was visiting dear Aunt Polly again, and he was very fond of her delicious plum-cake. But like many other little boys and a great many big ones he wanted more than was good for him, and Aunt Polly220 gently and wisely refused. I would not like to tell you how he hung his head, thrust his hands into his pocket and scuffled out of the room, because I do not like to draw disagreeable pictures. And yet, that is just what he did, and muttered to himself as he went, “stingy.”
 
Aunt Polly heard him, and looked very much hurt, but Ray did not seem to mind. He walked out of the house, into the beautiful June sunlight and wandered off, all by himself.
 
He had walked quite a distance before he decided² to sit on the warm grass and rest a minute.
 
“When I’m a man, I’ll have all the plum-cake I want,” said Ray to himself, “and I shan’t be stingy like Aunt Polly.”
 
“Poor Aunt Polly!” whispered a wee voice in Ray’s ear.
 
Ray jumped to his feet to see who had spoken, but he could not see anybody.
 
“Who said ‘poor Aunt Polly’?” asked Ray, looking all around him. No one answered, so he sat on the grass again.
 
“Dear, good, kind Aunt Polly,” whispered the wee voice again. Once more Ray jumped to his feet but could not see the least sign of anybody.
 
All at once, as he looked around, he realized that he was in a strange place. He had wandered into Aunt Polly’s old-fashioned garden with its wealth of roses and its quaint³ beds of four-o’clocks and mignonette.
 
At least Ray supposed he was in her garden, but, as his eyes rested on the strange sight before him, he said to himself, “Surely this is not Aunt Polly’s beautiful garden.”
 
It looked dark and gloomy, and strangest of all, the flowers were all a peculiar⁴ shade of blue.
 
Ray walked to some rosebushes, and could scarcely believe his eyes, when he discovered great, blue roses.
 
“Who ever heard of a blue rose?” said Ray, stooping to smell of one.
 
There was not the least odor, and the little boy was disappointed.
 
“Old, blue roses,” muttered Ray. “I’d rather have red roses that scent⁶ the whole garden with their perfume.”
 
He tried some of the other flowers, and found the same story to be told of them. They were blue in color, and had not the slightest odor.
 
Ray walked all over the garden. He was getting very tired of the same blue shade to everything, when he happened to spy a narrow staircase, near the garden wall.
 
It led downward and Ray, without thinking, walked down the tiny stairs.
 
At the very end of the staircase he came to a small, iron door, which, like everything else, had a bluish tinge⁷.
 
Ray opened the door and walked into a room223 that was fitted up with shelves and a grand show-case. It looked very much like a store.
 
In the center of the room sat a little old man, dressed in blue, with a queer, blue cap on the top of his head.
 
“Well, my boy, what can I do for you to-day,” asked the little blue man, jumping to his feet and making a low bow to Ray.
 
“Nothing, thank you,” said Ray, looking curiously⁸ around.
 
“Then you don’t care to buy,” said the little blue man, and it seemed to Ray that his whole appearance became a deeper blue, and he seemed disappointed.
 
“What have you to sell?” asked Ray.
 
“Manners,” answered the little man quickly.
 
“Manners!” repeated Ray, “how funny, I didn’t know that manners were for sale.”
 
“O yes, they are,” was the answer; “and some are very cheap indeed.”
 
“How much?” asked Ray, wondering.
 
“I have heard,” said the little blue man, “of people selling their manners for a piece of plum-cake.”
 
Ray was very quiet for several minutes, when he heard this. Suddenly he said, “Are the manners that you have to sell in those boxes?” (Ray pointed⁵ to the show-case, where several gaudy⁹ boxes stood in a row.)
 
“Yes,” replied the little storekeeper, “that is where I keep some of them.”
 
“And when people buy them, what do they do with them,” asked the boy.
 
“Well, my boy, they take them out of the boxes and put them on, very much as they do their clothes. These manners are very cheap, they are not the best kind, of course.”
 
“Where do you keep the best kind?” asked the child.
 
The little blue man’s face brightened. He walked behind the show-case and disappeared for a minute.
 
He returned with a very tiny box of no particular color. It was a sort of brownish green, but the shade was so quiet and restful to the eyes that one liked to look at it.
 
He held it before Ray and raised the lid. It was only for a second, but there was something so bright and beautiful in the tiny box that Ray’s eyes sparkled and he cried:
 
“O let me have this box—I’d like to buy these manners!”
 
The little blue man smiled and said:
 
“But this box contains good manners, and they are not for sale.”
 
Ray felt terribly disappointed. There was something so pleasing and altogether delightful¹⁰ about the little box that he wanted it very much.
 
“Are you quite sure that you don’t want any of these other boxes?” asked the little storekeeper.
 
“No, thank you,” replied Ray. “I don’t care226 for them, after seeing this little box of good manners.”
 
“I’m very glad to hear you say so,” said the blue man, “because I don’t get any profit from these boxes, and still I sell more of them in one week than I do of the other kind in a month.”
 
“I’d like to have the box of good manners,” said Ray, “but if it is not for sale I don’t see how I can get it.”
 
“I’ll tell you,” said the little man; “you can earn it. It is a fairy box, and can do the most wonderful things. I have known this little box to get into a boy’s pocket and thence into his very skin. It settles up near his heart in some good place and there it remains¹¹, bringing him all sorts of good fortune.”
 
Ray looked eagerly at the............