h she were the very
Spirit of the Flame.

The mysterious fire played up and down her dark and rolling locks,
twining and twisting itself through and around them like threads of
golden lace; it gleamed upon her ivory breast and shoulder, from which
the hair had slipped aside; it slid along her pillared throat and
delicate features, and seemed to find a home in the glorious eyes that
shone and shone, more brightly even than the spiritual essence.

Oh, how beautiful she looked there in the flame! No angel out of heaven
could have worn a greater loveliness. Even now my heart faints before
the recollection of it, as she stood and smiled at our awed faces, and
I would give half my remaining time upon this earth to see her once like
that again.

But suddenly--more suddenly than I can describe--a kind of change came
over her face, a change which I could not define or explain, but none
the less a change. The smile vanished, and in its place there came a
dry, hard look; the rounded face seemed to grow pinched, as though some
great anxiety were leaving its impress upon it. The glorious eyes, too,
lost their light, and, as I thought, the form its perfect shape and
erectness.

I rubbed my eyes, thinking that I was the victim of some hallucination,
or that the refraction from the intense light produced an optical
delusion; and, as I did so, the flaming pillar slowly twisted and
thundered off whithersoever it passes to in the bowels of the great
earth, leaving Ayesha standing where it had been.

As soon as it was gone, she stepped forward to Leo's side--it seemed to
me that there was no spring in her step--and stretched out her hand
to lay it on his shoulder. I gazed at her arm. Where was its wonderful
roundness and beauty? It was getting thin and angular. And her face--by
Heaven!--_her face was growing old before my eyes!_ I suppose that Leo
saw it also; certainly he recoiled a step or two.

"What is it, my Kallikrates?" she said, and her voice--what was the
matter with those deep and thrilling notes? They were quite high and
cracked.

"Why, what is it--what is it?" she said confusedly. "I feel dazed.
Surely the quality of the fire hath not altered. Can the principle of
Life alter? Tell me, Kallikrates, is there aught wrong with my eyes?
I see not clear," and she put her hand to her head and touched her
hair--and oh, _horror of horrors!_--it all fell upon the floor.

"Oh, _look!--look!--look!_" shrieked Job, in a shrill fal