ll the night
through? O Gnulemah!--

"They love each other well,--seem made to make each other happy; yet
have they come together from the ends of the earth to be each other's
curse! Only if I keep silence might it be otherwise, for love might
tame the devil that I have bred in Gnulemah. Even now she seems more
angel than devil!--Am I mad?"

He straightened himself in his chair, and glanced up towards the
crevice whence slanted the dusty sunshine. The old robe took the
opportunity to deliver its final warning.

"Not yet mad beyond remedy, Manetho; but you look up too seldom at the
sunshine, and brood too often over your own dusty depths. You have had
no consciously unselfish thought during the last quarter of a century.
You eat, drink, and breathe only Manetho! This room is yours, because
it is fullest of rubbish, and least looks out upon the glorious
universe. Break down your walls! take broom in hand without delay!
Proclaim at once the crime you meditate. Go! there is still sunshine
in this dust-hole of yours, and more of heaven in every man than he
himself dreams of. The sun is passing to the other side. Go while it
shines!"

But Manetho's dull ears heard not; and the aged garment of truth spoke
no more.

XXX.

DANDELIONS.

It seems a pity that, with all imagination at our service, we should
have to confine our excursions within so narrow a domain as this of
Hiero Glyphic's. One tires of the best society, uncondimented with an
occasional foreign relish, even of doubtful digestibility. Barring
this, it only remains to relieve somewhat the monotony of our food, by
variety in the modes of dishing it up.

Balder had been no whit disconcerted at the priest's abrupt
evanishment. The divine sphere of Gnulemah had touched him with its
sweet magnetism, and he was sensible of little beyond it. Their hands
greeted like life-long friends. Drawing hers within his arm, he still
kept hold of it, and her rounded shoulder softly pressed his, as they
loitered out between the impenetrable sphinxes. The conservatory,
however beautiful in itself and by association, was too small to hold
their hearts at this moment. They passed on, and through the columns
of the Moorish portico, into the fervent noon sunshine.

Grasshoppers chirped; fine buzzing flies darted swift circles and lit
again; birds giggled and gossiped, bobbing and swinging among swaying
boughs. Battalions of vast green trees stood grand in shadow-lakes of