and higher.

"We stood holding each other's hands and gazing. At last there was but a
little black spot in the sky; then it faded and shivered, and was gone.
Side by side we moved away. We were very wet, but the sun was hot.

"Suddenly I spoke. I could not restrain my burning desire to look deep
into the soul of Irene. I owed it to my love of her to know the extent
of her love for me. Those words which she called down from the car,
which might have been her last words on earth, what were they? I asked
her.

"'I said,' she answered, 'that if you would pick up that rifle you threw
out, and stand ready, I would jerk open the safety-valve. I would then
take up my rifle, and when the car came down we would both shoot him.
But you shook your head, and I said no more.'

"I did not answer, but in my heart I said: 'O woman! What art thou,
and of what strange feelings art thou made! Thou hast the beauty
of the flower and the intellect of the leaf. To let that awful
black-and-yellow fiend descend to the earth! To call up to a cruel
death and ask it to come down-stairs and meet you on the lowest step!
Skies! How can the mind of man conceive of it?'

"And leaving the shores of the river, we toiled homeward over the dreary
wastes."

The company were all much interested in this narrative--almost painfully
interested. They said as much to the Frenchman, and he was pleased at
the impression he had felt sure he would make, and which he always did
make, when he told that story. They talked of hunts and wild beasts, but
there were no comments upon the story itself. Each one had his or her
own thought, however. The Master of the House thought: "What a clever
woman!" The Mistress of the House thought: "Just like a Frenchman!" The
Next Neighbor wished she had been in the balloon to pitch the tiger on
him. The Daughter of the House was fascinated at the idea of the
vicinity of the beautiful, ferocious tiger. And John Gayther thought, as
he looked wistfully at the Daughter of the House: "I am glad he has a
wife!"

THIS STORY IS TOLD BY

POMONA AND JONAS

AND IS CALLED

THE FOREIGN PRINCE AND THE
HERMIT'S DAUGHTER

VII

THE FOREIGN PRINCE AND THE HERMIT'S DAUGHTER

The Frenchman went away; and after him there was a succession of
visitors to the house who were not interested in gardens and were
t