They were near enough now for us to see that Ferratoni’s face was lighted with smiles, and that the Princess, too, looked very happy. “It is hardly that, yet,” I said, “but I think we need not be surprised at anything. Though such an alliance, I suppose, would require some special dispensation or sanction of the sun.” “Yes,” assented Gale, “and, by the way, Nick, who is that little yellow-haired girl that is setting up to you—the one that sings a good deal and plays on that little bandolin arrangement—and that other one, Bill, that dark-eyed one who walks about with you so much, holding hands, and wondering how old you could live to be, if you really tried?” I made no immediate reply, and Mr. Sturritt showed languid confusion. “I—that is——” he began, “she—she is——” “I think,” I interposed, “she is a cousin to that very delightful little auburn-haired creature, who sits all day at the feet of our Admiral, listening to “How Doth the Little Busy Bee” and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” “Nick,” said Gale, “if anything should happen that we ever did get out of this snap, and back to—to people—the yacht, and Biff, and Johnnie, I mean—I suppose it would be just as well not to mention some of the things that happen down here. They wouldn’t quite understand the conditions, you see—the—the atmosphere, as the artists say—the poetry of it, you know. You wouldn’t want to say anything, yourself——” He was interrupted at this point by the arrival on our terrace of the singing children. I had no opportunity to reply, but I did not at once join very heartily in the ceremonies. The latter were very simple, and consisted of little more than a continuance of the marching and singing, with a pause at short intervals to shout a great pæan to their divinity. Then there ensued a wonderfully graceful dance, and after this a marvellous floral decoration of the entire temple, within and without. In this the Princess took but a brief initiatory part, and presently, when the upper terrace was finished, most of her followers descended to the work below, leaving with her only her ladies-in-waiting, a few gentlemen of the court, and ourselves. We reclined among the flowers, and for a time there was a silence, broken only by the distant singing voices of those still busy below. It seemed a sort of benediction after the offering, and then for some reason there came upon me a feeling like that when at the opera the curtain descends and the chorus dies into the distance; the feeling that something is over and completed—that something new and different is about to begin. XXXIII. THE TOUCH OF LIFE.