an
seemed desirable with feminine auditors.

Then the old woman said:

"I think this is a true tale, my daughter, for the witches of Amneran
contrive strange things, with mists to aid them, and with Lilith and
Sclaug to abet. Yes, and this fate has fallen before to men that have
been over-friendly with the dead."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the stout lady.

"But, no, my daughter. Thus seven persons slept at Ephesus, from the
time of Decius to the time of Theodosius--"

"Still, Mother--"

"And the proof of it is that they were called Constantine and Dionysius
and John and Malchus and Marcian and Maximian and Serapion. They were
duly canonized. You cannot deny that this thing happened without
asserting no less than seven blessed saints to have been unprincipled
liars, and that would be a very horrible heresy--"

"Yet, Mother, you know as well as I do--"

"And thus Epimenides, another excellently spoken-of saint, slept at
Athens for fifty-seven years. Thus Charlemagne slept in the Untersberg,
and will sleep until the ravens of Miramon Lluagor have left his
mountains. Thus Rhyming Thomas in the Eildon Hills, thus Ogier in
Avalon, thus Oisin--"

The old lady bade fair to go on interminably in her gentle, resolute,
piping old voice, but the other interrupted.

"Well, Mother, do not excite yourself about it, for it only makes your
asthma worse, and does no especial good to anybody. Things may be as you
say. Certainly I intended nothing irreligious. Yet these extended naps,
appropriate enough for saints and emperors, are out of place in one's
own family. So, if it is not stuff and nonsense, it ought to be. And
that I stick to."

"But we forget the boy, my dear," said the old lady. "Now listen,
Florian de Puysange. Thirty years ago last night, to the month and the
day, it was that you vanished from our knowledge, leaving my daughter a
forsaken bride. For I am what the years have made of Dame Melicent, and
this is my daughter Adelaide, and yonder is her daughter Sylvie de
Nointel."

"La! Mother," observed the stout lady, "but are you certain it was the
last of April? I had been thinking it was some time in June. And I
protest it could not have been all of thirty years. Let me see now,
Sylvie, how old is your brother Richard? Twenty-eight, you say. Well,
Mother, I always said you had a marvellous memory for things like that,
and I often envy you. But how time does fly, to be sure!"

And Florian was perturbed.