nd, if the Emperor's health does not improve, the locks
there will soon look like my white Diana's."

Here she hesitated, and, accustomed both in the discharge of the duties
of her office and during the chase not to deviate too far from the goal
she had in view, she first gave her favourite dog, which had leaped on
Don Luis in friendly greeting, a blow with her whip, and then said in a
totally different tone:

"But I am not the person in question. You have already heard that you
must help me, Luis. Did you see the Emperor yesterday after vespers?"

"I had the honour, your Majesty."

"And did not the conviction that he is in evil case force itself upon
you?"

"I felt it so keenly that I spoke to Dr. Mathys of his feeble appearance,
his bowed figure, and the other things which I would so gladly have seen
otherwise."

"And these things? Speak frankly!"

"These things," replied the major-domo, after a brief hesitation, "are
the melancholy moods to which his Majesty often resigns himself for
hours."

"And which remind you of Queen Juana, our unhappy mother?" asked the
Queen with downcast eyes.

"Remind is a word which your Majesty will permit me to disclaim," replied
Quijada resolutely. "The great thinker, who never loses sight of the most
distant goal, who weighs and considers again and again ere he determines
upon the only right course in each instance--the great general who
understands how to make far-reaching plans for military campaigns as ably
as to direct a cavalry attack--the statesman whose penetration pierces
deeper than the keen intelligence of his famous councillors--the wise
law-giver, the ruler with the iron strength of will and unfailing memory,
is perhaps the soundest person mentally among all of us at court-nay,
among the millions who obey him. But, so far as my small share of
knowledge extends, melancholy has nothing to do with the mind. It is
dependent upon the state of the spirits, and springs from bile----"

"You learned that from Dr. Mathys," interrupted the royal lady, "and the
quacks repeat it from their masters Hippocrates and Galen. Such parrot
gabble does not please me. To my woman's reason, it seems rather that
when the mind is ill we should try a remedy whose effect upon it has
already been proved, and I think I have found it."

"I am still ignorant of it," replied Quijada eagerly; "but I would swear
by my saint that you have hit upon the right expedient."

"Listen, then, and this