“Yes, but,” said Hortense, “but, but, but! one needs to know the charm that controls the staff—” “My dear creature! But you are Hortense, are you not? Yes, I remember Florian told me all about you: and after the manner in which he has behaved to me, I am perfectly willing to believe that he misrepresented you in every way. Even if you used to make it a regular habit of flying at people’s throats like that, I know how many perfectly well meaning women simply do not realize what an annoyance it is for any one person to want to do all the talking—” “I think so too, but—” “Oh, I am not in the least offended, my dear. It is merely that, as I was telling you, Hortense, my sister Mélusine was one of the most potent sorceresses in the known world, and so utterly devoted to her art that hardly a day passed without at any rate a little parlor conjuring. And I used often to be playing in the corner with my building blocks and my dolls when she was at her practising. If I were to tell you half the things I have witnessed with my own eyes, you simply would not believe a word of it. Yes, Mélusine was quite accomplished, there is no denying that. And as I was saying, you know how children are, and how often they surprise you when you had no notion they were paying the least attention. Yes, as I often think, it is the littlest pitchers that have the largest ears—” “If you know how the cantraps run, then, to be sure—” “Why, but,” said Melior, now with her air of one who is dealing patiently with an irrational person, “but everybody knows if it is not the _Eman hetan_ charm, it has to be either the _Thout tout a tout_ or the _Horse and hattock_ one. And so, I do hope, you see my feeling in the matter. Because, of course, appreciating as I do the perfectly well-meant suggestions of every one of you, still nobody in my delicate condition exactly likes to go about sliding down ropes and poisoning the servants, not to speak of the dogs, who, after all, are not responsible for their master’s doings, and walking nobody knows how many miles in the dark. So I shall go to Hoprig more carefully, and quickly too, upon the demon’s staff, vexatious as it is not to be remembering his name. I distinctly remember there was a Z in it, because there always seemed to me something romantic about a Z, and that he had talons like an eagle; but it was not Bembo, or Celerri, or El-Gabal—No, it has quite gone out of my mind, but, in any event, I am much obliged to all of you. And no doubt it will come back to me the moment I stop trying to remember—” Thus speaking, Melior arose from the tomb, and left the Chapel reflectively. A brief silence followed, a silence that was broken by Marianne. She said, “Poor Florian!” “He had his faults of course,” assented Hortense, “but really, to a person of any sensibility—Do peep, my love, and tell me if my skirts are down properly—”