e mention you,--why, then, yes!'

'How?--how?'

'Talked of a young Phoebus Apollo--without mentioning names, certainly,
but in the most sensible, and practical, and hopeful way--the wisest
speech that I have heard from her this twelvemonth.'

Philammon blushed scarlet.

'And that,' thought he, in spite of what passed this morning!--Why' what
is the matter with our host?'

'He has taken Solomon's advice, and forgotten his sorrow.'

And so, indeed, he had; for he was sleeping sweetly, with open
lack-lustre eyes, and a maudlin smile at the ceiling; while the negress,
with her head fallen on her chest, seemed equally unconscious of their
presence.

'We'll see,' quoth Miriam; and taking up the lamp, she held the flame
unceremoniously to the arm of each of them; but neither winced nor
stirred.

'Surely your wine is not drugged?' said Philammon, in trepidation.

'Why not? What has made them beasts, may make us angels. You seem none
the less lively for it! Do I?'

'But drugged wine?'

'Why not? The same who made wine made poppy-juice. Both will make man
happy. Why not use both?'

'It is poison!'

'It is the nepenthe, as I told Hypatia, whereof she was twaddling
mysticism this morning. Drink, child, drink! I have no mind to put
you to sleep to-night! I want to make a man of you, or rather, to see
whether you are one!'

And she drained another cup, and then went on, half talking to herself--

'Ay, it is poison; and music is poison; and woman is poison, according
to the new creed, Pagan and Christian; and wine will be poison, and
meat will be poison, some day; and we shall have a world full of mad
Nebuchadnezzars, eating grass like oxen. It is poisonous, and brutal,
and devilish, to be a man, and not a monk, and an eunuch, and a dry
branch. You are all in the same lie, Christians and philosophers, Cyril
and Hypatia! Don't interrupt me, but drink, young fool!--Ay, and the
only man who keeps his manhood, the only man who is not ashamed to be
what God has made him, is your Jew. You will find yourselves in want
of him after all, some day, you besotted Gentiles, to bring you back
to common sense and common manhood.--In want of him and his grand old
books, which you despise while you make idols of them, about Abraham,
and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Solomon, whom you call saints, you
miserable hypocrites, though they did what you are too dainty to do,
and had their wives and their children, and thanked God for a