“_I love you too much, my beautiful one— I am not able to help it. My heart has become just like a grasshopper,— It does nothing but leap. I have never met any woman Who has so beautiful a form as yours. Your eyes flash flame; Your body has enchained me captive._ _Ah, you are like the rattlesnake Who knows how to charm the little bird, And who has a mouth ever ready for it To serve it for a tomb. I have never known any negress Who could walk with such grace as you can. Or who could make such beautiful gestures;_ _Your body is a beautiful doll._ _When I cannot see you, Adele, I feel myself ready to die; My life becomes like a candle Which has almost burned itself out. I cannot then find anything in the world Which is able to give me pleasure: I could well go down to the river And throw myself in so that I might cease to suffer._ _Tell me if you have a man, And I will make an ouanga charm for him; I will make him turn into a phantom, If you will only take me for your husband. I will not go to see you when you are cross: Other women are mere trash to me; I will make you very happy And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief._” “Thank you, thank you, Sally.” “It is from _Ozias Midwinter._” Mrs. Sinquier shuddered. “Those scandalous topsies that entrap our missionaries!” she said. “In Oshkosh—” “Don’t, Mike. The horrors that go on in certain places, I’m sure no one would believe.” Miss Sinquier caressed lightly the Canon’s cheek. “Soothed?” she asked. “... Fairly.” “When I think of those coloured coons,” Mrs. Sinquier went on, “at the Palace fête last year! Roaming all night in the Close.... And when I went to look out next day there stood an old mulattress holding up the baker’s boy in the lane.” “There, Mary!” “Tired, dear?” “Sunday’s always a strain.” “For you, alas! it’s bound to be.” “There were the Catechetical Classes to-day.” “Very soon now Sally will learn to relieve you.” Miss Sinquier threw up her eyes. “I?” she wondered. “Next Sunday it’s time you should begin.” “Between now and _that_,” Miss Sinquier reflected, shortly afterwards, on her way upstairs, “I shall almost certainly be in town.” “O London—City of Love!” she warbled softly as she locked her door. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ III IN the Gazebo at the extremity of the garden, by the new parterre, Miss Sinquier, in a morning wrapper, was waiting for the post. Through the trellis chinks, semicircular, showed the Close, with its plentiful, seasoned timber and sedate, tall houses, a stimulating sequence, architecturally, of whitewash, stone and brick.