oung lady in answer to my gentle father.
"And this disease that invades the country is natural. Nature. All
things proceed from Nature--don't they? All things in the heaven, in the
earth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? I
think so."

"The doctor said he would come here today," said my father, after a
silence. "I want to know what he thinks about it, and what he thinks we
had better do."

"Doctors never did me any good," said Carmilla.

"Then you have been ill?" I asked.

"More ill than ever you were," she answered.

"Long ago?"

"Yes, a long time. I suffered from this very illness; but I forget all
but my pain and weakness, and they were not so bad as are suffered in
other diseases."

"You were very young then?"

"I dare say, let us talk no more of it. You would not wound a friend?"

She looked languidly in my eyes, and passed her arm round my waist
lovingly, and led me out of the room. My father was busy over some
papers near the window.

"Why does your papa like to frighten us?" said the pretty girl with a
sigh and a little shudder.

"He doesn't, dear Carmilla, it is the very furthest thing from his
mind."

"Are you afraid, dearest?"

"I should be very much if I fancied there was any real danger of my
being attacked as those poor people were."

"You are afraid to die?"

"Yes, every one is."

"But to die as lovers may--to die together, so that they may live
together.

"Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally
butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs
and larvae, don't you see--each with their peculiar propensities,
necessities and structure. So says Monsieur Buffon, in his big book, in
the next room."

Later in the day the doctor came, and was closeted with papa for some
time.

He was a skilful man, of sixty and upwards, he wore powder, and shaved
his pale face as smooth as a pumpkin. He and papa emerged from the room
together, and I heard papa laugh, and say as they came out:

"Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you. What do you say to
hippogriffs and dragons?"

The doctor was smiling, and made answer, shaking his head--

"Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little
of the resources of either."

And so they walked on, and I heard no more. I did not then know what the
doctor had been broaching, but I think I guess it now.

V

_A Wonderful Likeness_

This evening there arrive