"Let's drop personalities, old chap--I mean my dear Miss An. Tell me something about your people, and let us begin properly at the top: have you got a king, for instance?" To this the girl, pulling herself out of the pleasant slough of her listlessness, and falling into my vein, answered-- "Both yes and no, sir traveller from afar--no chiefly, and yet perhaps yes. If it were no then it were so, and if yes then Hath were our king." "A mild king I should judge by your uncertainty. In the place where I came from kings press their individualities somewhat more clearly on their subjects' minds. Is Hath here in the city? Does he come to your feasts today?" An nodded. Hath was on the river, he had been to see the sunrise; even now she thought the laughter and singing down behind the bend might be the king's barge coming up citywards. "He will not be late," said my companion, "because the marriage-feast is set for tomorrow in the palace." I became interested. Kings, palaces, marriage-feasts--why, here was something substantial to go upon; after all these gauzy folk might turn out good fellows, jolly comrades to sojourn amongst--and marriage-feasts reminded me again I was hungry. "Who is it," I asked, with more interest in my tone, "who gets married?--is it your ambiguous king himself?" Whereat An's purple eyes broadened with wonder: then as though she would not be uncivil she checked herself, and answered with smothered pity for my ignorance, "Not only Hath himself, but every one, stranger, they are all married tomorrow; you would not have them married one at a time, would you?"--this with inexpressible derision. I said, with humility, something like that happened in the place I came from, asking her how it chanced the convenience of so many came to one climax at the same moment. "Surely, An, this is a marvel of arrangement. Where I dwelt wooings would sometimes be long or sometimes short, and all maids were not complacent by such universal agreement." The girl was clearly perplexed. She stared at me a space, then said, "What have wooings long or short to do with weddings? You talk as if you did your wooing first and then came to marriage--we get married first and woo afterwards!" "'Tis not a bad idea, and I can see it might lend an ease and certainty to the pastime which our method lacks. But if the woman is got first and sued subsequently, who brings you together? Who sees to the essential preliminaries of assortment?"