“Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? “O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South. “O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her that I follow thee.” The wooing which followed made a curious impression; this impression was not only produced upon the house, but upon both Prince and Princess. Priscilla, too, had encountered Hammond’s earnest gaze. That gaze fired her heart, and she became once again not herself but he; poor, awkward and _gauche_ little Prissie sank out of sight; she was Hammond pleading his own cause, she was wooing Maggie for him in the words of Tennyson’s Prince. This fact was the secret of Priscilla’s power; she had felt it more or less whenever she acted the part of the Prince; but, on this occasion, she communicated the sensations which animated her own breast to Maggie. Maggie, too, felt that Hammond was speaking to her through Priscilla’s voice. “I cannot cease to follow you, as they say The seal does music; who desire you more Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips, With many thousand matters left to do, The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth, Than sick men health— yours, yours, not mine— but half Without you; with you, whole; and of those halves You worthiest, and howe’er you block and bar Your heart with system out from mine, I hold That it becomes no man to nurse despair, But in the teeth of clench’d antagonisms To follow up the worthiest till he die.” In the impassioned reply which followed this address it was noticed for the first time by the spectators that Maggie scarcely did herself justice. Her exclamation— “_I_ wed with thee! _I,_ bound by precontract Your bride, your bondslave!” was scarcely uttered with the scorn which such a girl would throw into the words if her heart went with them. The rest of the play proceeded well, the Prince following up his advantage until his last words— “Accomplish thou my mandhood and thyself; Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me,” brought down the house with ringing applause. The curtain fell and rose again. The Prince and Princess stood with hands clasped. The eyes of the conquered Princess looked again at the people in the gallery, but the eyes she wanted to see did not meet hers. An hour later Maggie Oliphant had occasion to go back to the forsaken green-room to fetch a bracelet she had left there. Priscilla was standing in the corridor when she passed. Quick as lightning Prissie disappeared, and, making her way into the library, which was thrown open for a general reception that evening, sought out Hammond, and, taking his hand, said abruptly: “I want you; come with me.” In surprise he followed her into the hall. “Maggie is in the green-room. Go to her,” said Priscilla.