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know exactly what you CAN do to earn money, but if your uncle and I are

able to support you we will do it willingly, and send you to school. We

fear, though, that we shall have much trouble in earning a living for

ourselves. No one wants to employ old people who are broken down in

health, as we are."

Dorothy smiled.

Wouldn't it be funny," she said, "for me to do housework in Kansas,

when I'm a Princess in the Land of Oz?"

A Princess!" they both exclaimed, astonished.

Yes; Ozma made me a Princess some time ago, and she has often begged

me to come and live always in the Emerald City," said the child.

Her uncle and aunt looked at her in amazement. Then the man said:

Do you suppose you could manage to return to your fairyland, my

dear?"

Oh yes," replied Dorothy; "I could do that easily."

How?" asked Aunt Em.

Ozma sees me every day at four o'clock, in her Magic Picture. She can

see me wherever I am, no matter what I am doing. And at that time, if I

make a certain secret sign, she will send for me by means of the Magic

Belt, which I once captured from the Nome King. Then, in the wink of an

eye, I shall be with Ozma in her palace."

The elder people remained silent for some time after Dorothy had spoken.

Finally, Aunt Em said, with another sigh of regret:

If that is the case, Dorothy, perhaps you'd better go and live in the

Emerald City. It will break our hearts to lose you from our lives, but you

will be so much better off with your fairy friends that it seems wisest and

best for you to go."

I'm not so sure about that," remarked Uncle Henry, shaking his gray

head doubtfully. "These things all seem real to Dorothy, I know; but I'm

afraid our little girl won't find her fairyland just what she had dreamed it

to be. It would make me very unhappy to think that she was wandering

among strangers who might be unkind to her."

The Emerald City of Oz