g ill-writ Greek, and been stained dark with the grime
of manuscripts. So draw the curtain, and sit here by my side, and we
will eat fruit, and talk of pleasant things. See, I will again unveil
to thee. Thou hast brought it on thyself, oh Holly; fairly have I warned
thee--and thou shalt call me beautiful as even those old philosophers
were wont to do. Fie upon them, forgetting their philosophy!"

And without more ado she stood up and shook the white wrappings from
her, and came forth shining and splendid like some glittering snake when
she has cast her slough; ay, and fixed her wonderful eyes upon me--more
deadly than any Basilisk's--and pierced me through and through with
their beauty, and sent her light laugh ringing through the air like
chimes of silver bells.

A new mood was on her, and the very colour of her mind seemed to change
beneath it. It was no longer torture-torn and hateful, as I had seen
it when she was cursing her dead rival by the leaping flames, no longer
icily terrible as in the judgment-hall, no longer rich, and sombre, and
splendid, like a Tyrian cloth, as in the dwellings of the dead. No, her
mood now was that of Aphrodite triumphing. Life--radiant, ecstatic,
wonderful--seemed to flow from her and around her. Softly she laughed
and sighed, and swift her glances flew. She shook her heavy tresses,
and their perfume filled the place; she struck her little sandalled foot
upon the floor, and hummed a snatch of some old Greek epithalamium. All
the majesty was gone, or did but lurk and faintly flicker through her
laughing eyes, like lightning seen through sunlight. She had cast off
the terror of the leaping flame, the cold power of judgment that was
even now being done, and the wise sadness of the tombs--cast them off
and put them behind her, like the white shroud she wore, and now stood
out the incarnation of lovely tempting womanhood, made more perfect--and
in a way more spiritual--than ever woman was before.

"So, my Holly, sit there where thou canst see me. It is by thine own
wish, remember--again I say, blame me not if thou dost wear away thy
little span with such a sick pain at the heart that thou wouldst fain
have died before ever thy curious eyes were set upon me. There, sit so,
and tell me, for in truth I am inclined for praises--tell me, am I not
beautiful? Nay, speak not so hastily; consider well the point; take me
feature by feature, forgetting not my form, and my hands and feet, and
my hair