ght tremor in the voice, which showed that much of the
gaiety of the young man was forced.

"Nay, I have no mind to give you a lecture," returned Bladud, "I only
ask you to grant me two requests."

"Granted, before mentioned, for you have ever been a reasonable
creature, Bladud, and I trust you to retain your character on the
present occasion."

"Well, then, my first request is that you will often remember the many
talks that you and I have had about the gods, and the future life, and
the perplexing conditions in which we now live."

"Remember them," exclaimed Dromas with animation, "my difficulty would
be to forget them! The questions which you have propounded and
attempted to answer--for I do not admit that you have been quite
successful in the attempt--have started up and rung in my ears at all
kinds of unseasonable times. They haunt me often in my dreams--though,
to say truth, I dream but little, save when good fellowship has led me
to run supper into breakfast--they worry me during my studies, which,
you know, are frequent though not prolonged; they come between me and
the worthy rhapsodist when he is in the middle of the most interesting--
or least wearisome--passage of the poem, and they even intrude on me at
the games. The very last race I ran was lost, only by a few inches,
because our recent talk on the future of cats caused a touch of internal
laughter which checked my pace at the most critical moment. You may
rest assured that I cannot avoid granting your first request. What is
your second?"

"That you promise to visit me in my home in Albion. You know that it
will be impossible for me ever again to re-visit these shores, where I
have been so happy. My father, if he forgives my running away from him,
will expect me to help him in the management of his affairs. But you
have nothing particular to detain you here--"

"You forget--the old woman," interrupted Dromas gravely.

"What old woman?" asked Bladud in surprise.

"My mother!" returned his friend.

The prince looked a little confused and hastened to apologise. Dromas'
mother was one of those unfortunate people who existed in the olden time
as well as in modern days, though perhaps not so numerously. She was a
confirmed invalid, who rarely quitted her house, and was seldom seen by
any one save her most intimate friends, so that she was apt to be
forgotten--out of sight out of mind, then as now.

"Forgive me, Dromas--," began Bladud, but