gn people on the highway.
Hundreds of thousands a year, and tramping it like a pedlar, with a
beggar for his friend! He would have given something to have an English
ear near him as he watched them rounding under the mountain they were
about to climb.

CHAPTER IX

CONCERNING THE BLACK GODDESS FORTUNE AND THE WORSHIP OF HER, TOGETHER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION OF SOME OF HER VOTARIES

In those early days of Fortune's pregnant alternations of colour between
the Red and the Black, exhibited publicly, as it were a petroleum spring
of the ebony-fiery lake below, Black-Forest Baden was the sprightliest'
of the ante-chambers of Hades. Thither in the ripeness of the year
trooped the devotees of the sable goddess to perform sacrifice; and
annually among them the beautiful Livia, the Countess of Fleetwood; for
nowhere else had she sensation of the perfect repose which is rocked to a
slumber by gales.

She was not of the creatures who are excited by an atmosphere of
excitement; she took it as the nymph of the stream her native wave, and
swam on the flood with expansive languor, happy to have the master
passions about her; one or two of which her dainty hand caressed,
fearless of a sting; the lady petted them as her swans. It surprised her
to a gentle contempt of men and women, that they should be ruffled either
by love or play. A withholding from the scene will naturally arouse
disturbing wishes; but to be present lulls; for then we live, we are in
our element. And who could expect, what sane person can desire, perpetual
good luck? Fortune, the goddess, and young Love, too, are divine in their
mutability: and Fortune would resemble a humdrum housewife, Love a
droning husband, if constancy were practised by them. Observe the
staggering and plunging of the blindfold wretch seeking to be persuaded
of their faithfulness.

She could make for herself a quiet centre in the heart of the whirlwind,
but the whirlwind was required. The clustered lights at the corner of the
vale under forest hills, the burst of music, the blazing windows of the
saloons of the Furies, and the gamblers advancing and retreating, with
their totally opposite views of consequences, and fashions of wearing or
tearing the mask; and closer, the figures shifting up and down the
promenade, known and unknown faces, and the histories half known, half
woven, weaving fast, which flew their, threads to provoke speculation;
pleasantly embraced and diverted the cool-bloo