n. He could
scarcely believe his ears; but he hastened to set himself right at once.

"If you mean that you were under the impression that I meant anything in
particular by putting that ring on, it was all a mistake, mum," he said.
"I shouldn't have presumed to it!"

"Were you the lowliest of men, I care not," she replied; "to you I owe
the power I now enjoy of life and vision, nor shall you find me
ungrateful. But forbear this false humility; I like it not. Come, then,
Leander, at the bidding of Cypris; come, and fear nothing!"

But he feared very much, for he had seen the operas of _Don Giovanni_
and _Zampa_, and knew that any familiarity with statuary was likely to
have unpleasant consequences. He merely strengthened his defences with a
chair.

"You must excuse me, mum, you must indeed," he faltered; "I can't come!"

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I've other engagements," he replied.

"I remember," she said slowly, "in the grove, when light met my eyes
once more, there was a maid with you, one who laughed and was merry.
Answer--is she your love?"

"No, she isn't," he said shortly. "What if she was?"

"If she were," observed the goddess, with the air of one who mentioned
an ordinary fact, "I should crush her!"

"Lord bless me!" cried Leander, in his horror. "What for?"

"Would not she be in my path? and shall any mortal maid stand between me
and my desire?"

This was a discovery. She was a jealous and vengeful goddess; she would
require to be sedulously humoured, or harm would come.

"Well, well," he said soothingly, "there's nothing of that sort about
her, I do assure you."

"Then I spare her," said the goddess. "But how, then, if this be truly
so, do you still shrink from the honour before you?"

Leander felt a natural unwillingness to explain that it was because he
was engaged to a young lady who kept the accounts at a florist's.

"Well, the fact is," he said awkwardly, "there's difficulties in the
way."

"Difficulties? I can remove them all!" she said.

"Not _these_ you can't, mum. It's like this: You and me, we don't start,
so to speak, from the same basin. I don't mean it as any reproach to
you, but you can't deny you're an Eathen, and, worse than that, an
Eathen goddess. Now all my family have been brought up as chapel folk,
Primitive Methodists, and I've been trained to have a horror of
superstition and idolatries, and see the folly of it. So you can see for
yourself that we shouldn't be li