uld see, no real sympathy with
anything save his own dreams. In after years I came to know the
truth. He was kind enough in disposition, but he looked upon us, his
children, as his second wife's property, his dreams as his own. Once
every year he used to go to Switzerland and stay there for several
weeks; and, as the object of these journeys was evidently to revisit
the old spots made sacred to him by reminiscences of his romantic
love for his first wife, it may he readily imagined that they were
not looked upon with any favour by my mother. She never accompanied
him on these occasions, nor would she let Frank do so--another proof
of the early partiality she showed for my brother. As I was of less
importance, my father (previous to my accident) used to take me, to
my intense delight and enjoyment; but during the period of my
lameness he went to Switzerland alone.

It was during one of my childish visits to Switzerland that I learnt
an important fact in connection with my father and his first
wife--the fact that since her death he had become a mystic and had
joined a certain sect of mystics founded by Lavater.

This is how I came to know it. My attention had been arrested by a
book lying on my father's writing-table--a large book called '_The
Veiled Queen_, by Philip Aylwin'--and I began to read it. The
statements therein were of an astounding kind, and the idea of a
beautiful woman behind a veil completely fascinated my childish mind.
And the book was full of the most amazing stories collected from all
kinds of outlandish sources. One story, called 'The Flying Donkey of
the Ruby Hills,' riveted my attention so much that it possessed me,
and even now I feel that I can repeat every word of it. It was a
story of a donkey-driver, who, having lost his wife Alawiyah, went
and lived alone in the ruby hills of Badakhshan, where the Angel of
Memory fashioned for him out of his own sorrow and tears an image of
his wife. This image was mistaken by a townsman named Hasan for his
own wife, and Ja'afar was summoned before the Ka'dee. Afterwards,
when _The Veiled Queen_ came into my possession, I noticed that this
story was quoted for motto on the title-page:

'Then quoth the Ka'dee, laughing until his grinders appeared:
"Rather, by Allah, would I take all the punishment thou dreadest,
thou most false donkey-driver of the Ruby Hills, than believe this
story of thine--this mad, mad story, that she with whom thou wast
seen was not t