and, as she spoke the word, the veil seemed to descend over her face
again, the light faded out, and, with a slight shudder, the figure
imperceptibly resumed its normal attitude, the drapery stiffened once
more into chiselled folds, and the statue was soulless as are statues
generally.

FROM BAD TO WORSE

IV.

"And the shadow flits and fleets,
And will not let me be,
And I loathe the squares and streets!"

_Maud._

For some time after the statue had ceased to give signs of life, the
hairdresser remained gaping, incapable of thought or action. At last he
ventured to approach cautiously, and on touching the figure, found it
perfectly cold and hard. The animating principle had plainly departed,
and left the statue a stone.

"She's gone," he said, "and left her statue behind her! Well, of all the
_goes_----She's come out without her pedestal, too! To be sure, it would
have been in her way, walking."

Seating himself in his shabby old armchair, he tried to collect his
scattered wits. He scarcely realised, even yet, what had happened; but,
unless he had dreamed it all, he had been honoured by the marked
attentions of a marble statue, instigated by a heathen goddess, who
insisted that his affections were pledged to her.

Perhaps there was a spice of flattery in such a situation--for it cannot
fall to the lot of many hairdressers to be thus distinguished--but
Leander was far too much alarmed to appreciate it. There had been
suggestions of menace in the statue's remarks which made him shudder
when he recalled them, and he started violently once or twice when some
wavering of the light gave a play of life to the marble mask. "She's
coming back!" he thought. "Oh, I do wish she wouldn't!" But Aphrodite
continued immovable, and at last he concluded that, as he put it, she
"had done for the evening."

His first reflection was--what had best be done? The wisest course
seemed to be to send for the manager of the gardens, and restore the
statue while its animation was suspended. The people at the gardens
would take care that it did not get loose again.

But there was the ring; he must get that off first. Here was an
unhoped-for opportunity of accomplishing this in privacy, and at his
leisure. Again approaching the figure, he tried to draw off the
compromising circle; but it seemed tighter than ever, and he drew out a
pair of scissors and, after a little hesitation, respectfully inserte