ghter. The thought of the little innocent deception
as to their sleeping-room, which poverty had caused them to practise,
probably held the breath of the women, while the shyness of sex was a
common bond of silence--at least, on the part of the three younger. It
was long before Narcissus was able to fall asleep, for he kept picturing
the elder woman with burning cheek and open eyes in a kind of 'listening
fear' beneath the coverlet; and the oddity of the thing was so original,
so like some _conte_ of a _Decameron_ or _Heptameron_, with the
wickedness left out. But at last wonder gave place to weariness, and
sleep began to make a still odder magic of the situation. The difficulty
of meeting at breakfast next morning, which had at once suggested itself
to N.'s mind, proved a vain fear; for, when he arose, that other bed was
as smooth as though it had lain untouched through the night, and the
daughters of labour had been gone two hours. But it was not quite
without sign that they had gone, for Narcissus had a dreamlike
impression of opening his eyes in the early light to find a sweet
woman's face leaning over him; and I am sure he wanted to believe that
it had bent down still further, till it had kissed his lips--' for his
mother's sake,' she had said in her heart, as she slipped away and was
seen no more.

'If this were fiction, instead of a veracious study from life,' to make
use of a phrase which one rarely finds out of a novel, it would be
unfitting to let such an incident as that just related fall to the
ground, except as the seed of future development; but, this being as I
have stated, there is nothing more to say of that winning _ouvriere_.
Narcissus saw her no more.

But surely, of all men, he could best afford that one such pleasant
chance should put forth no other blossom save that half-dreamed
kiss;--and how can one ever foresee but that our so cherishable spray of
bloom may in time add but another branch to that orchard of Dead Sea
fruit which grows inevitably about all men's dwellings?

I do not suppose that Narcissus was really as exceptional in the number
and character of his numerous boyish loves as we always regarded him as
being. It is no uncommon matter, of course and alas! for a youth between
the ages of seventeen and nineteen to play the juggler at keeping three,
or even half-a-dozen, female correspondents going at once, each of whom
sleeps nightly with copious documentary evidence of her sole and
i