"My dear, those were my exact words. And why not?" "That was putting it sensibly of course, but it would have sounded much better if you had expressed yourself entirely upon moral grounds. It is most important, Manuel, as I am sure I have told you over and over again, for people in our position to show a proper respect for morality and religion and things of that sort whenever they come up in the conversation; but there is no teaching you anything except by bitter experience, which I sincerely hope may be spared you, and one might as well be arguing with a brick wall, and so you may go on"_) Well, the Queen wept and coaxed, but Manuel was firm. So Manuel spent that night in the Queen's room, performing the needful incantations, and arranging matters with the stork, and then Dom Manuel returned home. And that--well, really that was all. Such was the account which Dom Manuel rendered his wife. "And upon the whole, Niafer, I consider it a very creditable stroke of business, for as King of England the child will enjoy advantages which we could never have afforded him." "Yes," said Niafer, "and what does that dear friend of yours look like nowadays?" "--Besides, should the boy turn out badly our grief will be considerably lessened by the circumstance that, through never seeing this son of ours, our affection for him will never be inconveniently great." "There is something in that, for already I can see that Emmerick inherits his father's obstinacy, and it naturally worries me, but what does the woman look like nowadays?" "--Then, even more important than these considerations--." "Nothing is more important, Manuel, in this very curious sounding affair, than the way that woman looks nowadays." "Ah, my dear," says Manuel, diplomatically, "I did not like to speak of that, I confess, for you know these blondes go off in their appearance so quickly--" "Of course they do, but still--" "--And it not being her fault, after all, I did not like to tell you about Dame Alianora's looking so many years older than you do, since your being a brunette gives you an unfair advantage to begin with." "Ah, it is not that," said Niafer, still rather grim-visaged, but obviously mollified. "It is the life she is leading, with her witchcraft and her familiar spirits and that continual entertaining and excitement, and everybody tells me she has already taken to dyeing her hair." "Oh, it had plainly had something done to it," says Manuel, lightly. "But it is a queen's duty to preserve such remnants of good looks as she possesses." "So there, you see!" said Niafer, quite comfortable again in her mind when she noted the careless way in which Dom Manuel spoke of the Queen.