It is our life at thy feet we throw
To step with into light and joy;
Not a power of life but we employ
To satisfy thy nature's want."

The Gipsy said much more; she showed what perfect mutual love and
understanding can do, for "if any two creatures grow into one, they will
do more than the world has done"--and the tribe will at least approach
that end with this beloved woman. She says not _how_--whether by one
man's loving her to utter devotion of himself, or by _her_ giving "her
wondrous self away," and taking the stronger nature's sway. . . .

"I foresee and I could foretell
Thy future portion, sure and well;
But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,
Let them say what thou shalt do!"

But whatever she does, the eyes of her tribe will be upon her, with
their blame, their praise:

"Our shame to feel, our pride to show,
Glad, angry--but indifferent, no!"

And so at last the girl who now sits gazing up at her will come to old
age--will retire apart with the hoarded memories of her heart, and
reconstruct the past until the whole "grandly fronts for once her soul"
. . . and then, the gleam of yet another morning shall break; it will be
like the ending of a dream, when

"Death, with the might of his sunbeam,
Touches the flesh, and the soul awakes."

With that great utterance her voice changed like a bird's. The music
began again, the words grew indistinguishable . . . with a snap the
charm broke, and the huntsman, "starting as if from a nap," realised
afresh that the lady was being bewitched, sprang from the balcony to the
ground, and hurried round to the portal. . . . In another minute he
would have entered:

"When the door opened, and more than mortal
Stood, with a face where to my mind centred
All beauties I ever saw or shall see,
The Duchess: I stopped as if struck by palsy.
She was so different, happy and beautiful,
I felt at once that all was best" . . .

And he felt, too, that he must do whatever she commanded. But there was,
in fact, no commanding. Looking on the beauty that had invested her,
"the brow's height and the breast's expanding," he knew that he was hers
to live and die, and so he needed not words to find what she
wanted--like a wild creature, he knew by instinct what this freed wild
creature's bidding was. . . . He went before her to the stable; she
followed; the old woman, silent and alone, came la