retty it
wasn't possible to choose between them, so the poor gentlemen fought
over their rival charms, and were either killed or went away unable to
make up their minds. The sad end was, if you'll believe me, that all
the eight maidens died unmarried, martyrs to their own incomparable
charms."

"I can quite believe it," I answered, "and it wasn't at all sad, because
I'm sure any girl who had once had this place for her home would have
pined in grief at being taken away, even by the most glorious knight of
the world."

"Come in and see their boudoir," said the knight who worked, if he did
not fight, for me.

So we went in, without the trouble of using battering rams; for alas,
the family of the eight nymphs grew tired of their chateau and the gorge
in the dreadful days of the religious wars, and now it is an hotel. It
would not receive paying guests until summer, but a good-natured
caretaker opened the door for us, and we saw a number of stone-paved
corridors, and the nymphs' boudoir.

Their adoring father had ordered their portraits to be painted on the
ceiling; and there they remain to this day, simpering sweetly down upon
the few bits of ancient furniture made to match the room and suit their
taste.

They smiled amiably at us, too, the eight little faces framed in
Henrietta Maria curls; and their eyes said to me, "If you want to be
happy, _m'amie_, it is better not to be too beautiful; or else not to
have any sisters. Or if Providence _will_ send you sisters, go away
yourself, and visit your plainest friend, till you have got a husband."

Gazing wistfully back, as one does gaze at places one fears never to see
again, the Castle of the Nymphs looked like a fantastic water-flower
standing up out of the green river, on its thick stem of rock. Then it
was gone; for our time was not quite our own, and we dared not linger,
lest the boat with our Betters should arrive at the meeting place before
we reached it in the car. But there were compensations, for almost with
every moment the gorge grew grander. Cascades sparkled in the sun like
blowing diamond-dust. The rocks seemed set with jewels, or patterned
with mosaic; and there were caves--caves almost too good to be true. Yet
if we could believe our eyes, they were true, even the dark cavern
where, once upon a time, lived a scaly dragon who terrorized the whole
country for miles around, and had no relish for his meals unless they
were composed of the most exquisite yo