ated was I
already with beauty and with wit, that I hardly dared hope for a fresh
emotion. Yet her title was tinged with romance, and Coralie's display
had aroused in me an interest in her sex which even herself had failed
to satisfy entirely.

Brayed in by trumpets, Zephyrine swung passionately into the arena.
With a bound she stood erect, one foot upon each of her supple, plunging
Arabs; and at once I knew that my fate was sealed, my chapter closed,
and the Bride of the Desert was the one bride for me. Black was her
raiment, great silver stars shone through it, caught in the dusky
twilight of her gauze; black as her own hair were the two mighty steeds
she bestrode. In a tempest they thundered by, in a whirlwind, a scirocco
of tan; her cheeks bore the kiss of an Eastern sun, and the sand-storms
of her native desert were her satellites. What was Coralie, with her
pink silk, her golden hair and slender limbs, beside this magnificent,
full-figured Cleopatra? In a twinkling we were scouring the desert--she
and I and the two coal-black horses. Side by side, keeping pace in our
swinging gallop, we distanced the ostrich, we outstrode the zebra; and,
as we went, it seemed the wilderness blossomed like the rose.

*****

I know not rightly how we got home that evening. On the road there were
everywhere strange presences, and the thud of phantom hoofs encircled
us. In my nose was the pungent circus-smell; the crack of the whip and
the frank laugh of the clown were in my ears. The funny man thoughtfully
abstained from conversation, and left our illusion quite alone, sparing
us all jarring criticism and analysis; and he gave me no chance, when
he deposited us at our gate, to get rid of the clumsy expressions of
gratitude I had been laboriously framing. For the rest of the evening,
distraught and silent, I only heard the march-music of the band, playing
on in some corner of my brain. When at last my head touched the pillow,
in a trice I was with Zephyrine, riding the boundless Sahara, cheek to
cheek, the world well lost; while at times, through the sand-clouds that
encircled us, glimmered the eyes of Coralie, touched, one fancied, with
something of a tender reproach.

ITS WALLS WERE AS OF JASPER

In the long winter evenings, when we had the picture-books out on
the floor, and sprawled together over them with elbows deep in the
hearth-rug, the first business to be gone through was the process of
allotment. All the charact