"A little diamond peak, No bigger than an unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scimitar; Bright signal that she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals ere deliciously She bowed unto the heavens her timid head, Slowly she rose as though she would have fled." "There's no doubt," said Maryllia, "that this place is romantic! And romance is what I've been searching for all my life, and have never found except in books. Not so much in modern books as in the books that were written by really poetical and imaginative people sixty or seventy years ago. Nowadays, the authors that are most praised go in for what they call 'realism'--and their realism is very UNreal, and very nasty. For instance, this garden,--these lovely trees,--this dear old house--all these are real--but much too romantic for a modern writer. He would rather describe a dusthole and enumerate every potato paring in it! And here am I--I'm real enough--but I'm not a bad woman--I haven't got what is euphoniously called 'a past,' and I don't belong to the right-down vicious company of 'Souls.' So I should never do for a heroine of latter-day fiction. I'm afraid I'm abnormal. It's dreadful to be abnormal! One becomes a 'neurotic,' like Lombroso, and all the geniuses. But suppose the world were full of merely normal people,--people who did nothing but eat and sleep in the most perfectly healthy and regular manner,--oh, what a bore it would be! There would be no pictures, no sculpture, no poetry, no music, no anything worth living for. One MUST have a few ideas beyond food and clothing!" The moon, rose higher and shed a shower of silver over the grass, lighting up in strong relief the fair face upturned to it. "Now the 'Souls' pretend to have ideas," continued Maryllia, still apostrophising the bland stillness; "But their ideas are low,-- decidedly low,--and decidedly queer. And that Cabinet Ministers are in their set doesn't make them any the better. I could have been a 'Soul' if I had liked. I could have learnt a lot of wicked secrets from the married peer who wanted to be my 'affinity,'--only I wouldn't. I could have got all the Government 'tips,' gambled with them on the Stock Exchange, and made quite a fortune as a 'Soul.' Yet here I am,--no 'Soul,'--but only a poor little body, with something in me that asks for a higher flight than mere social intrigue. Just a bit of a higher flight, eh, Plato? What do you think about it?" Plato the leonine, waved his plumy tail responsively and gently rubbed his great head against her arm. Resting one hand lightly on his neck, she moved towards the house and slowly ascended the graduating slopes of the grass terrace. Here she was suddenly met by Primmins.