enough in other respects, the odds were ten to
one that her teeth were defective; a terrible drawback on the
delectableness of a kiss.

"Excuse me, fair lady," said Theodore, and I think he nearly burst into
a laugh, "if I prefer to lift the veil first; and for this affair of
the kiss, we may decide upon it afterwards."

"Thou hast made thy choice," said the sweet, sad voice behind the veil;
and there seemed a tender but unresentful sense of wrong done to
womanhood by the young man's contemptuous interpretation of her offer.
"I must not counsel thee to pause, although thy fate is still in thine
own hand!"

Grasping at the veil, he flung it upward, and caught a glimpse of a
pale, lovely face beneath; just one momentary glimpse, and then the
apparition vanished, and the silvery veil fluttered slowly down and lay
upon the floor. Theodore was alone. Our legend leaves him there. His
retribution was, to pine forever and ever for another sight of that
dim, mournful face,--which might have been his life-long household
fireside joy,--to desire, and waste life in a feverish quest, and never
meet it more.

But what, in good sooth, had become of the Veiled Lady? Had all her
existence been comprehended within that mysterious veil, and was she
now annihilated? Or was she a spirit, with a heavenly essence, but
which might have been tamed down to human bliss, had Theodore been
brave and true enough to claim her? Hearken, my sweet friends,--and
hearken, dear Priscilla,--and you shall learn the little more that
Zenobia can tell you.

Just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, when the Veiled Lady
vanished, a maiden, pale and shadowy, rose up amid a knot of visionary
people, who were seeking for the better life. She was so gentle and so
sad,--a nameless melancholy gave her such hold upon their
sympathies,--that they never thought of questioning whence she came.
She might have heretofore existed, or her thin substance might have
been moulded out of air at the very instant when they first beheld her.
It was all one to them; they took her to their hearts. Among them was a
lady to whom, more than to all the rest, this pale, mysterious girl
attached herself.

But one morning the lady was wandering in the woods, and there met her
a figure in an Oriental robe, with a dark beard, and holding in his
hand a silvery veil. He motioned her to stay. Being a woman of some
nerve, she did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, as man