compared with the dado, the composition columns, the settees and other accessories of the room. Dust, black, deep and ancient, had settled among those gilded lilies and plaster cupids; part of the work had fallen away, exposing the supporting wires, and part was grievously cracked. It may be because plaster cracks more irregularly than marble, but whatever the reason a noseless plaster Muse, however elegant originally, cannot reassert her loveliness like an antique torso or the armless Aphrodite. Moreover, the spider, ubiquitous and remorseless, had woven his octagonal mesh in every crevice of the wall, and, more shamelessly still, among the pendants of the great glass chandelier, wherein were still sticking grisly and darkened stumps of candle, the same that had been lit at the requiem of the last King of Alsander twenty years ago. Since then a plain lamp (so portable and so much easier to light) had been deemed sufficient for the service of the Court. Perhaps the most pitiable objects in the room were the two or three sofas that still remained, their gilt tarnished, their tapestries y mouldy and eaten by the moth. But the hall contained another seat of a far different aspect, impervious to such decay. Beneath the great rose window it stood, at the upper end of the room, strangely out of place, a cold and massive work, the ancient throne of the Kradendas. It was fronted by wide steps, flanked by grotesque yet grand lions, and wrought of granite rock. And if this rude and barbaric throne was anomalous in so artistic a room, still more vivid was the contrast between the majesty of its structure and the majesty of him who sat thereon. For there sat the imbecile Andrea, with watery grey eyes, with hair and hands unkempt, arrayed in the stifling drapery of his state robes. He was a young man, but he seemed to have been alive five hundred years. His features parodied the portraits of his ancestors. With the heavy iron crown of Alsander on his head, and a great silver sceptre in his hands, he sat immobile; only his mumbling lips seemed to address a phantom and imaginary Court. CHAPTER V OF THE KNIGHTING OF NORMAN PRICE Do diddle di do, Poor Jim Jay Got stuck fast In yesterday. _Peacock Pie._ The madman on the throne seemed to know Norman's guide, for he showed no surprise, but asked immediately: "Whom hast thou with thee, O last courtier of the Court of the Kradendas?" "A young squire, O my liege the King, who will devote his life to rescue the house of the Kradenda from infamy and harm," said the beggar. "He is young, but our need is great. Above all, we need brave men. We need such men as have made Alsander what it is. Tell me," he continued, turning to Norman, "are you brave or fearful?"