Presently, he heard the Venus Annodomini saying:--“Do you know that your son is one of my most devoted admirers?” “I don't wonder,” said “Young” Gayerson. Here he raised his voice:--“He follows his father's footsteps. Didn't I worship the ground you trod on, ever so long ago, Kitty--and you haven't changed since then. How strange it all seems!” “Very Young” Gayerson said nothing. His conversation with the daughter of the Venus Annodomini was, through the rest of the call, fragmentary and disjointed. . . . . . . . . . “At five, to-morrow then,” said the Venus Annodomini. “And mind you are punctual.” “At five punctual,” said “Young” Gayerson. “You can lend your old father a horse I dare say, youngster, can't you? I'm going for a ride tomorrow afternoon.” “Certainly,” said “Very Young” Gayerson. “I am going down to-morrow morning. My ponies are at your service, Sir.” The Venus Annodomini looked at him across the half-light of the room, and her big gray eyes filled with moisture. She rose and shook hands with him. “Good-bye, Tom,” whispered the Venus Annodomini. THE BISARA OF POOREE. Little Blind Fish, thou art marvellous wise, Little Blind Fish, who put out thy eyes? Open thine ears while I whisper my wish-- Bring me a lover, thou little Blind Fish. The Charm of the Bisara. Some natives say that it came from the other side of Kulu, where the eleven-inch Temple Sapphire is. Others that it was made at the Devil-Shrine of Ao-Chung in Thibet, was stolen by a Kafir, from him by a Gurkha, from him again by a Lahouli, from him by a khitmatgar, and by this latter sold to an Englishman, so all its virtue was lost: because, to work properly, the Bisara of Pooree must be stolen--with bloodshed if possible, but, at any rate, stolen. These stories of the coming into India are all false. It was made at Pooree ages since--the manner of its making would fill a small book--was stolen by one of the Temple dancing-girls there, for her own purposes, and then passed on from hand to hand, steadily northward, till it reached Hanla: always bearing the same name--the Bisara of Pooree. In shape it is a tiny, square box of silver, studded outside with eight small balas-rubies. Inside the box, which opens with a spring, is a little eyeless fish, carved from some sort of dark, shiny nut and wrapped in a shred of faded gold-cloth. That is the Bisara of Pooree, and it were better for a man to take a king cobra in his hand than to touch the Bisara of Pooree. All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with except in India where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, toy-scum stuff that people call “civilization.” Any man who knows about the Bisara of Pooree will tell you what its powers are--always supposing that it has been honestly stolen. It is the only regularly working, trustworthy love-charm in the country, with one exception.