"Amen," said Lambro, responsive to the toast. "We had to assassinate old Capo d'Istria because he was too much under Russian influence. Ah! how we danced the Romaïka the night he died!" This remark of Lambro created a diversion, for Barbara, who had never seen the Greek national dance, asked him to describe it. The old Palicar did more than describe,--he acted it. Kicking his embroidered slippers into the air he went through all the flings and evolutions of the Romaïka with an agility surprising for one so aged, at the same time chanting an appropriate ballad. "Ah! who could leap higher than Lambro in his youth?" he cried, when he had finished his performance. Barbara thanked him, and observed, with a pretty air of command, that as Lambro had done something to entertain them it was now Paul's turn to do the like. And Paul began by singing the first song that entered his head and that happened to be "The Mistletoe Bough," at that time not so hackneyed a ballad as now, and probably never before heard in the hall of a Dalmatian castle. At any rate it was new to his hearers, and Barbara in particular seemed much interested by it. "Is there any truth in it?" she asked at its conclusion. "Supposed to be founded on fact," returned Paul, proceeding to relate the story of the fair lady of Modena. "Ginevra, if she had lived at Castel Nuovo," observed Barbara, "might have found a better place of concealment than an oaken chest. Now," she added, prompted by a playful impulse, "give me a clear start of one minute, and without going outside the castle I will undertake to hide where no one shall find me." She sprang up, and with laughing eyes and graceful step danced from the apartment. "She is still a girl, you see," smiled Paul. Entering into the fun of the thing they allowed a full minute to elapse, and then set off to find her. They went through the castle from roof to basement, exploring every place capable of affording concealment. But Barbara was invisible; she had vanished as if completely melted to air. Half-an-hour had passed in this search. Then they went again through the building loudly calling her by name, and, proclaiming themselves beaten, they invited her to come forth from her hiding place. Their appeal met with no response. They stared dubiously at one another. The affair had begun to lose its humorous side. The death-like silence, Barbara's invisibility, the gray twilight now stealing through the castle, caused it to assume a somewhat ghostly aspect. "She must have gone outside," said Lambro. "She promised to keep within the building," observed Paul. For the third time they explored the castle, ending their search on the highest landing of the staircase. Here they paused before the locked door of the mysterious study. "She is perhaps concealed here," suggested Paul. "Impossible," returned Lambro, pointing to the wax. "The Master's seal is unbroken."