of a Greek
woman (they SAY she is a princess, of course), who can do a lot of
things with flowers and plate glass. They are bringing her for the first
time to-morrow, and it struck me that if I have YOU there already when
they arrive--you'll come in your national costume by the way?--it will
be a considerable set-off. Since his daughter was presented to the
duchess at the opening of a bazaar, there has been no holding Pash; why
he was ever elected Reader of the Books, I don't know. Er--we have had
scoffers sometimes, but I trust I may rely upon you not to laugh at
anything you may not happen to agree with?"

With conscientious dignity I replied that I had only really laughed
seven times in my life, and therefore the entertainment was one which
I was not likely to embark upon hastily or with inadequate cause. He
immediately expressed a seemly regret that the detail had been spoken,
and again assuring him that at the stated hour I would present myself
at the house bearing the symbol engraved upon the card, we definitely
parted.

That, as a matter of fact, I did not so present myself at the exact
hour, chiefly concerns the uncouth and arbitrary-minded charioteer who
controlled the movements of the vehicle to which the one whom I was
seeking had explicitly referred; for at an angle in the road he suffered
the horses to draw us aside into a path which did not correspond to the
engraved signs upon the card, nor by any word of persuasion could he be
prevailed upon to return.

Thus, without any possible reproach upon the manner in which I was
conducting the enterprise, it came about that by the time I reached the
spot indicated, all those persons who had been spoken of as constituting
a chosen band were assembled, and with them the barbarian princess.
Nevertheless, this person was irreproachably greeted, and the maiden
indicated even spoke a few words to him in an outside tongue. Being
necessarily unacquainted with the import of the remark I spread out my
hands with a sign of harmonious sympathy and smiled agreeably, whereat
she appeared to receive an added esteem from the faces of those around
(excluding those directly of the House of Glidder), and was thereby
encouraged to speak similarly at intervals, this person each time
replying in a like fashion.

"Is he then a Guide of the Way, also, princess?" said the one Pash, who
had noted the occurrence; to which the maiden replied, "To a degree, yet
lacking the Innermost Mys