feet, and Leander felt that he had never heard of a
more appallingly massive ghost--if ghost indeed she were.

He had retired step by step before her to the hearthrug, where he now
stood shivering, with the fire hot at his back, and his kettle still
singing on undismayed. He made no attempt to account for her presence
there on any rationalistic theory. A statue had suddenly come to life,
and chosen to pay him a nocturnal visit; he knew no more than that,
except that he would have given worlds for courage to show it the door.

The spectral eyes were bent upon him, as if in expectation that he
would begin the conversation, and, at last, with a very unmanageable
tongue, he managed to observe--

"Did you want to see me on--on business, mum?"

[Illustration: "DID YOU WANT TO SEE ME ON--ON BUSINESS, MUM?"]

But the statue only relaxed her lips in a haughty smile.

"For goodness' sake, say something!" he cried wildly; "unless you want
me to jump out of the winder! What is it you've come about?"

It seemed to him that in some way a veil had lifted from the stone face,
leaving it illumined by a strange light, and from the lips came a voice
which addressed him in solemn far-away tones, as of one talking in
sleep. He could not have said with certainty that the language was his
own, though somehow he understood her perfectly.

"You know me not?" she said, with a kind of sad indifference.

"Well," Leander admitted, as politely as his terror would allow, "you
certingly have the advantage of me for the moment, mum."

"I am Aphrodite the foam-born, the matchless seed of AEgis-bearing Zeus.
Many names have I amongst the sons of men, and many temples, and I sway
the hearts of all lovers; and gods--yea, and mortals--have burned for
me, a goddess, with an unconsuming, unquenchable fire!"

"Lor!" said Leander. If he had not been so much flurried, he might have
found a remark worthier of the occasion, but the announcement that she
was a goddess took his breath away. He had quite believed that goddesses
were long since "gone out."

"You know wherefore I am come hither?" she said.

"Not at this minute, I don't," he replied. "You'll excuse me, but you
can't be the statue out of those gardens? You reelly are so surprisingly
like, that I couldn't help asking you."

"I am Aphrodite, and no statue. Long--how long I know not--have I lain
entranced in slumber in my sea-girt isle of Cyprus, and now again has
the living touch of a mort