lovely than the day. These maidens had blond curling hair and frontlets of red gold upon their heads. About each tender and rose-tinted body was a gown of yellow satin. Upon the feet of these maidens were shoes of variegated leather fastened with gilt clasps.... In fine, the heirs of Heaven discharged their moral and constabulary duties quite picturesquely as they rode homeward. It was in this way I who was Merlin Ambrosius played with heroic virtues: it was thus that I who was the son of my father made, for my amusement, men that were more virtuous and colorful than Heaven had ever been able to make them. Still, still, it really was a rather plainly outrageous notion upon which all this was founded: and by and by the dear and droll, and heart-breakingly beautiful antics of my flesh and blood toys did not content my desire.” Gerald remarked, now that the old gentleman had paused in his meditative speaking, “Your desire, Messire Merlin, as I remember it, was for an enchantress who outwitted and betrayed you.” “Men,” Merlin answered, with a grave smile, “have made a mistake in that report. Is it likely that I could be outwitted? No: I was Merlin Ambrosius.” And then Merlin told Gerald about the child Nimuë, who was the daughter of the goddess Diana, and of how old, wearied, over-learned Merlin had come to her in the likeness of a young squire. He told of how they played for a long while with his ancient magics, there in the spring woods, beside a very clear fountain in which the gravel shone like powdered silver. To make this twelve-year-old child laugh, as she did so adorably, the mage had turned into prettiness and drollery every infernal device. He created for the child Nimuë, there in the April woods, an orchard full of all those fruits and flowers, howsoever unseasonably mingled, which have the liveliest sweetness and flavor. Phantoms danced for her wide-eyed amusement, in the shaping of armed knights and archbishops and crowned ladies and goat-legged fauns: and it was all quite excellent fun.... Then Merlin told to Nimuë, because she pouted so adorably, the secret of building a tower which is not made of stone or timber or iron, and is so strong that it may never be felled while this world endures. And Nimuë, the moment that he had fallen asleep with his head in her lap, spoke very softly the old runes. In the while that she continued to caress her lover, she imprisoned Merlin in an enchanted tower which she had builded out of the magic air of April above a flowering white hawthorn-bush, so that Nimuë might keep her wonderful, so wise, dear lover utterly to herself.