It must have been near morning when I was awakened by the jingling of bells, and a sleigh driving into the _porte cochere_. A few moments later I heard Elodia and her maid coming up the stairs. Her maid attended her everywhere, and stationed herself about like a dummy. She was the sign always that Elodia was not far off; and I am sure she would have laid down her life for her mistress, and would have suffered her tongue to be cut out before she would have betrayed her secrets. I tell you this to show you what a power of fascination Elodia possessed; she seemed a being to be worshiped by high and low. Severnius and I ate our breakfast alone the following morning. The Supreme Sorceress did not get up, nor did she go down town to attend to business at all during the day. At lunch time she sent her maid down to tell Severnius that she had a headache. "Quite likely," he returned, as the girl delivered her message; "but I am sorry to hear it. If there is anything I can do for her, tell her to let me know." The girl made her obeisance and vanished. "We have to pay for our fun," said Severnius with a sigh. "I should not think your sister would indulge in such 'fun'!" I retorted as a kind of relief to my hurt sensibilities, I was so cruelly disappointed in Elodia. "Why my sister in particular?" returned he with a look of surprise. "Well, of course, I mean all those women,--why do they do such things? It is unwomanly, it--it is disgraceful!" I could not keep the word back, and for the first time I saw a flash of anger in my friend's eyes. "Come," said he, "you must not talk like that! That term may have a different signification to you, but with us it means an insult." I quickly begged his pardon and tried to explain to him. "Our women," I said, "never do things of that sort, as I have told you. They have no taste for them and no inclination in that direction,--it is against their very nature. And if you will forgive me for saying so, I cannot but think that such indulgence as we witnessed last night must coarsen a woman's spiritual fibre and dull the fine moral sense which is so highly developed in her."