eve they had a loving Father in
Heaven who cared for them,--but the monkeys of the race, the atheists,
swinging from point to point of argument and chattering all the time,
have persuaded them that they are as Tennyson once mournfully wrote--"

"Poor orphans of nothing--alone on that lonely shore,
Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she
bore!"

"Can we wonder then that they are tired?--tired of pursuing a useless
quest? Human nature is craving for a change--for a newer world--a newer
race,--and those who see that Nature is NOT 'brainless' but full of
intelligent conception, are sure that the change will come!"

"And you are one of 'those who see'?--" said Rivardi, incredulously.

"I do not say I am,--that would be too much self-assertion"--she
answered--"But I hope I am! I long to see the world endowed more richly
with health and happiness. See how gloriously the sun has risen! In
what splendour of light and air we are sailing! If we can do as much as
this we ought to be able to do more!"

"We shall do more in time"--he said--"The advance of one step leads to
another."

"In time!" echoed Morgana--"What time the human race has already taken
to find out the simplest forces of nature! It is the horrible bulk of
blank stupidity that hinders knowledge--the heavy obstinate bulk that
declines to budge an inch out of its own fixity. Nowadays we triumph in
our so-called 'discoveries' of wireless telegraphy and telephony,
light-rays and other marvels--but these powers have always been with us
from the beginning of things,--it is we, we only, who have refused to
accept them as facts of the universe. Let us talk no more about
it!--Stupidity is the only thing that moves me to despair!"

She rose from the little table, and called Gaspard to breakfast, while
Rivardi went back to the business of steering. The day was now fully
declared, and the great air-ship soared easily in a realm of ethereal
blue--blue above, blue below--its vast wings moving up and down with
perfect rhythm as if it were a living, sentient creature, revelling in
the joys of flight. For the rest of the day Morgana was very silent,
contenting herself to sit in her charming little rose-lined nest of a
room, and read,--now and then looking out on the radiating space around
her, and watching for the first slight downward movement of the "White
Eagle" towards land. She had plenty to occupy her thoughts--and strange
to say she did not consid