nd on the altar-steps.

"Are you not Virgo?" said a woman to the Girl. "I sent you flowers
yesterday."

"Little sister," said the Girl, flushing to her forehead, "do not send
any more flowers, for I am only a woman like yourself." The man and
the woman went away doubtfully.

"Now, what shall we do?" said Leo.

"We must try to be cheerful, I think," said the Girl. "We know the
very worst that can happen to us, but we do not know the best that
love can bring us. We have a great deal to be glad of."

"The certainty of death?" said Leo.

"All the children of men have that certainty also; yet they laughed
long before we ever knew how to laugh. We must learn to laugh, Leo. We
have laughed once, already."

People who consider themselves Gods, as the Children of the Zodiac
did, find it hard to laugh, because the Immortals know nothing worth
laughter or tears. Leo rose up with a very heavy heart, and he and the
girl together went to and fro among men; their new fear of death
behind them. First they laughed at a naked baby attempting to thrust
its fat toes into its foolish pink mouth; next they laughed at a
kitten chasing her own tail; and then they laughed at a boy trying to
steal a kiss from a girl, and getting his ears boxed. Lastly, they
laughed because the wind blew in their faces as they ran down a
hill-side together, and broke panting and breathless into a knot of
villagers at the bottom. The villagers laughed, too, at their flying
clothes and wind-reddened faces; and in the evening gave them food and
invited them to a dance on the grass, where everybody laughed through
the mere joy of being able to dance.

That night Leo jumped up from the Girl's side crying: "Every one of
those people we met just now will die----"

"So shall we," said the Girl sleepily. "Lie down again, dear." Leo
could not see that her face was wet with tears.

But Leo was up and far across the fields, driven forward by the fear
of death for himself and for the Girl, who was dearer to him than
himself. Presently he came across the Bull drowsing in the moonlight
after a hard day's work, and looking through half-shut eyes at the
beautiful straight furrows that he had made.

"Ho!" said the Bull. "So you have been told these things too. Which of
the Houses holds your death?"

Leo pointed upward to the dark House of the Crab and groaned. "And he
will come for the Girl too," he said.

"Well," said the Bull, "what will you do?"

Leo sat down