h this crowd;
here, by moonlight, in the pretty glow of these paper lanterns. Yes,
she said, let it be here and now; and she bade the Duke make the
announcement.

"What shall I say?" he asked. "'Gentlemen, I have the pleasure to
announce that Miss Zuleika Dobson, the world-renowned She-Wizard, will
now oblige'? Or shall I call them 'Gents,' tout court?"

She could afford to laugh at his ill-humour. She had his promise of
obedience. She told him to say something graceful and simple.

The noise of the violin had ceased. There was not a breath of wind. The
crowd in the quadrangle was as still and as silent as the night itself.
Nowhere a tremour. And it was borne in on Zuleika that this crowd had
one mind as well as one heart--a common resolve, calm and clear, as well
as a common passion. No need for her to strengthen the spell now. No
waverers here. And thus it came true that gratitude was the sole motive
for her display.

She stood with eyes downcast and hands folded behind her, moonlit in
the glow of lanterns, modest to the point of pathos, while the Duke
gracefully and simply introduced her to the multitude. He was, he said,
empowered by the lady who stood beside him to say that she would be
pleased to give them an exhibition of her skill in the art to which
she had devoted her life--an art which, more potently perhaps than any
other, touched in mankind the sense of mystery and stirred the faculty
of wonder; the most truly romantic of all the arts: he referred to the
art of conjuring. It was not too much to say that by her mastery of this
art, in which hitherto, it must be confessed, women had made no very
great mark, Miss Zuleika Dobson (for such was the name of the lady who
stood beside him) had earned the esteem of the whole civilised world.
And here in Oxford, and in this College especially, she had a peculiar
claim to--might he say?--their affectionate regard, inasmuch as she was
the grand-daughter of their venerable and venerated Warden.

As the Duke ceased, there came from his hearers a sound like the
rustling of leaves. In return for it, Zuleika performed that graceful
act of subsidence to the verge of collapse which is usually kept for the
delectation of some royal person. And indeed, in the presence of this
doomed congress, she did experience humility; for she was not altogether
without imagination. But, as she arose from her "bob," she was her own
bold self again, bright mistress of the situation.

It