rtainly pass a more exhilarating hour
of repast. Then, too, instead of those antiquated dramas performed
by childish amateurs, certainly, when I am king, I will introduce our
modern opera and a 'corps de ballet,' for which one might find, among
the nations I shall conquer, young females of less formidable height and
thews than the Gy-ei--not armed with vril, and not insisting upon one's
marrying them.

I was so completely rapt in these and similar reforms, political,
social, and moral, calculated to bestow on the people of the nether
world the blessings of a civilisation known to the races of the upper,
that I did not perceive that Zee had entered the chamber till I heard a
deep sigh, and, raising my eyes, beheld her standing by my couch.

I need not say that, according to the manners of this people, a Gy can,
without indecorum, visit an An in his chamber, although an An would be
considered forward and immodest to the last degree if he entered the
chamber of a Gy without previously obtaining her permission to do
so. Fortunately I was in the full habiliments I had worn when Zee had
deposited me on the couch. Nevertheless I felt much irritated, as well
as shocked, by her visit, and asked in a rude tone what she wanted.

"Speak gently, beloved one, I entreat you," said she, "for I am very
unhappy. I have not slept since we parted."

"A due sense of your shameful conduct to me as your father's guest might
well suffice to banish sleep from your eyelids. Where was the affection
you pretend to have for me, where was even that politeness on which the
Vril-ya pride themselves, when, taking advantage alike of that physical
strength in which your sex, in this extraordinary region, excels our
own, and of those detestable and unhallowed powers which the agencies of
vril invest in your eyes and finger-ends, you exposed me to humiliation
before your assembled visitors, before Her Royal Highness--I mean, the
daughter of your own chief magistrate,--carrying me off to bed like a
naughty infant, and plunging me into sleep, without asking my consent?"

"Ungrateful! Do you reproach me for the evidences of my love? Can you
think that, even if unstung by the jealousy which attends upon love
till it fades away in blissful trust when we know that the heart we
have wooed is won, I could be indifferent to the perils to which the
audacious overtures of that silly little child might expose you?" "Hold!
Since you introduce the subject of perils,