_Blue Beard_, to make their better acquaintance, invited them, with their mother and brothers and a dozen or so of their youthful friends, to divert themselves at one of his country houses, where they spent a whole fortnight, and (as they confessed) in the most agreeable pastimes. Each day brought some fresh entertainment: they hunted, they hawked, they practised archery, they angled for gold-fish, or were rowed to the sound of music on the waters of their host's private canal, they picnicked in the ruined castles, of which he owned quite a number. Each day concluded, too, with banqueting, dancing, card-parties, theatricals; or would have concluded, had these young people felt any disposition to go to bed. They preferred, however, to sit up until morning, joking and teasing one another. _Blue Beard_, who had arrived at middle age, would have been grateful for a little more sleep than they allowed him, but showed himself highly complaisant and smiled at their pranks even when--their awe of him having worn off--they balanced a basin of water above his chamber door, to fall on his head and douch him, or sewed up his night-garments, or stuffed his bolster with the prickly cactus (an Eastern vegetable, of which he possessed whole avenues); nay, even when, for the same mischievous purpose, they despoiled his garden of an aloe which was due to blossom in a few days' time, after having remained flowerless for a century, he betrayed no chagrin but merely raised the wages of his head-gardener, heart-broken over the loss of a plant so economical in giving pleasure. In short all went so smoothly that the younger daughter began to find their host's beard not so blue after all. She confided this to her mother. 'Dear mother,' she said, 'it is doubtless nothing more than my fancy, but his beard _does_ seem to me to have altered in colour during the last ten days--a very little, of course.' 'Then you, too, have observed it!' the lady interrupted delightedly. 'My dearest child, you cannot imagine how your words relieve me! For a week past I have accused my eyesight of failing me, and myself of growing old.' 'Then you really think there _is_ a change?' asked _Fatima_, at once doubtful and hoping. 'Indeed, yes. Ask yourself if it be reasonable to suppose that our eyes are playing a trick on both of us? Not,' her mother went on, 'that I, for my part, have any prejudice against blue. On the contrary, it is a beautiful colour, and considered lucky. The poets--you will have remarked--when they would figure to us the highest attainable happiness, select a blue flower or a blue bird for its emblem. Heaven itself is blue; and, at the least, a blue beard must be allowed to confer distinction.' 'A greyish-blue,' hazarded _Fatima_. 'A bluish-grey, rather,' her mother corrected her: 'that is, if I must define the shade as it appears to me.' 'And,' still hesitated _Fatima_, 'since it has begun to change, there seems no reason why it should not continue to do so.'