finger approaches her lip; her foot falls soft as snow. What is
her name?

_Jupiter_. Discretion. And this other?

_Truth_. Oh, father! the cordial look, the blooming cheek, the bright smile
that is almost a laugh, the buoyant step, and the expansive bosom! What
name bears she?

_Jupiter_. Good Nature. Return, my daughter, to earth; continue to
enlighten man's ignorance and to reprove his folly; but let Discretion
suggest the occasion, and Good Nature inspire the wording of your
admonitions. I cannot engage that you may not, even with these precautions,
sometimes pay a visit to the stake; and if, when an adventure of this sort
appears imminent, Discretion should counsel a temporary retirement to your
well, I am sure Good Nature will urge nothing to the contrary.

THE THREE PALACES

Three pairs of young people, each a youth with his bride, came together
along a road to the point where it divided to the right and left. On one
side was inscribed, "To the Palace of Truth," and on the other, "To the
Palace of Illusion."

"This way, my beauty!" cried one of the youths, drawing his companion in
the direction of the Palace of Truth. "To the place where and where alone
thy perfections may be beheld as they are!"

"And my imperfections!" whispered the young spouse, but her tone was airy
and confident.

"Well," said the second youth, "does the choice beseem you upon whom the
moon of your nuptials is beaming still. My beloved and I are riper in
Hymen's lore by not less, I ween, than one fortnight. Prudence impels us
towards the Palace of Illusion."

"Thy will is mine, Alonso," said his lady.

"I," said the third youth, "will seek neither; for I would not be wise
over-much, while of what I deem myself to know I would be well assured.
Happy am I, and bless my lot, yet have I beheld a red mouse in closer
contiguity to my beloved than I could bring myself to approve, albeit it
leapt not from her mouth as they do sometimes. Yet do I know it for a red
mouse and nothing worse; had I inhabited the Palace of Illusion haply I
had deemed it a rat. And, it being a red mouse as it indubitably was, to
what end fancy it a tawny-throated nightingale?"

While, therefore, the other pairs proceeded on the paths they had
respectively chosen, this sage youth and his bride settled themselves at
the parting of the ways, built their cot, tended their garden, tilled their
field and raised fruits around them, including children.

Th