I wanted to ask Severnius something about her, but I thought he avoided the subject. He told me, however, that her husband, Massilia, was one of his closest friends. And then he added, "I wonder that she took his advice!" "Why so," I asked; "do not women here ever take their husbands' advice?" "Claris is not in the habit of doing so," he returned with, I thought, some severity. And then he immediately spoke of something else quite foreign to her. The third and last story comprised an immense hall or assembly room, and rows of deep closets for the robes and paraphernalia of the members of the Order. In one of these closets a skeleton was suspended from the ceiling and underneath it stood a coffin. On a shelf were three skulls with their accompanying cross-bones, and several cruel-looking weapons. Severnius said he supposed these hideous tokens were employed in the initiation of new members. It seemed incredible. I thought that, if it were so, the Marsian women must have stronger nerves than ours. A great many beautiful marble columns and pillars supported the roof of the hall, and the walls had a curiously fluted appearance. There was a great deal of sculpture, not only figures, but flowers, vines, and all manner of decorations,--even draperies chiseled in marble that looked like frozen lace, with an awful stillness in their ghostly folds. There was a magnificent canopied throne on an elevation like an old-fashioned pulpit, and seats for satellites on either side, and at the base. If I had been alone, I would have gone up and knelt down before the throne,--for of course that was where Elodia sat,--and I would have kissed the yellow cushion on which her feet were wont to rest when she wielded her jeweled scepter. The scepter, I observed, lay on the throne-chair. There was an orchestra, and there were "stations" for the various officials, and the walls were adorned with innumerable cabalistic insignia. I asked Severnius if he knew the meaning of any of them. "How should I know?" he replied in surprise. "Only the initiates understand those things." "Then these women keep their secrets," said I. "Yes, to be sure they do," he replied. The apartment to the right, on the entrance floor, opposite the baths, was the last we looked into, and was a magnificent banquet hall. A servant who stood near the door opened it as though it had been the door of a shrine, and no wonder! It was a noble room in its dimensions and in all its unparalleled adornments and appurtenances. The walls and ceiling bristled with candelabra all alight. The tables, set for a banquet, held everything that could charm the eye or tempt the appetite in such a place. I observed a great many inverted stemglasses of various exquisite styles and patterns, including the thin, flaring goblets, as delicate as a lily-cup, which mean the same thing to Marsians as to us. "Do these women drink champagne at their banquets?" I asked, with a frown.