“You are a most impetuous little person, Mary,” he said, “you don’t know the kind of bird we have got into the net. You think he will let you openly and without any illusion put salt upon his tail. No greater mistake could be. Earnshaw,” he added calmly, “come and let me show you your room. We dine directly, as we are alone and above ceremony. You can talk to my wife as much as you like after dinner--I shall go to sleep. What a blessing it is to be allowed to go to sleep after dinner,” he went on as he led the way upstairs, “especially on Saturday night--when one is tired and has Sunday to look forward to.” “Why should it be especially blessed on Saturday night?” “My dear fellow,” said the host solemnly, ushering his guest into a large and pleasant room, brilliant with firelight, “it is very clear that you have never kept a shop.” And with these words he disappeared, leaving Edgar, it must be allowed, somewhat disturbed in his mind as to what it could all mean, why he had been thus selected as a visitor and conducted to this fairy palace; what it was that the wife wondered her husband had not said--and indeed what the whole incident meant? As he looked round upon his luxurious quarters, and felt himself restored as it were to the life he had so long abandoned, curious dreams and fancies came fluttering about Edgar without any will of his own. It was like the adventure (often enough repeated) in the Arabian nights, in which the hero is met by some mysterious mute and blindfolded, and led into a mysterious hall, all cool with plashing fountains and sweet with flowers. These images were not exactly suited to the wintry drive he had just taken, though that was pleasant enough in its way, and no bed of roses could have been so agreeable as the delightful glimpse of the fire, and all the warm and soft comfort about him. But had he been blindfolded--had he been brought unawares into some beneficent snare? Edgar’s heart began to beat a little quicker than usual. He did not know and dared not have whispered to himself what the fancies were that beset him. He tried to frown them down, to represent to himself that he was mad, that the curious freak of his new friend, and his own long fasting from all social intercourse had made this first taste of it too much for his brain. But all that he could do was not enough to free him from the wild fancies which buzzed about him like gnats in Summer, each with its own particular hum and sting. He dressed hurriedly and took a book by way of escaping from them, a dry book which he compelled himself to read, rather than go crazy altogether. Good heavens, was he mad already? In that mysterious palace where the hero is brought blindfold, where he is waited on by unseen hands, and finds glorious garments and wonderful feasts magically prepared for him, is there not always in reserve a princess more wonderful still, who takes possession of the wayfarer? “Retro, Satanas!”