ed a mild tolerance.

"You say that just now"--she said--"But I think you will alter your
mind some day! You would not like to be quite alone always--not even in
the Palazzo d'Oro."

"YOU are quite alone?"

"Ah, but I am an old woman, my dear! I have lived my day!"

"That's not true," said Morgana, decisively--"You have not 'lived your
day' since you are living NOW! And if you are old, that is just a
reason why you should NOT be alone. But you ARE. Your husband is dead,
and your daughter has other ties. So even marriage left you high and
dry on the rocks as it were till my little boat came along and took you
off them!"

"A very welcome little boat!" said Lady Kingswood, with feeling--"A
rescue in the nick of time!"

"Never mind that!" and Morgan waved her pretty hand expressively--"My
point is that marriage--just marriage--has not done much for you. It is
what women clamour for, and scheme for,--and nine out of ten regret the
whole business when they have had their way. There are so many more
things in life worth winning!"

Lady Kingswood looked at her interestedly. She made a pretty picture
just then in her white morning gown, seated in a low basket chair with
pale blue silk cushions behind her on which her golden head rested with
the brightness of a daffodil.

"So many more things!" she repeated--"My air-ship for instance!--it's
worth all the men and all the marriages I've ever heard of! My beloved
'White Eagle!'--my own creation--my baby--SUCH a baby!" She laughed.
"But I must learn to fly with it alone!"

"I hope you will do nothing rash!"--said Lady Kingswood, mildly; she
was very ignorant of modern discovery and invention, and all attempt to
explain anything of the kind to her would have been a hope less
business--"I understand that it is always necessary to take a pilot and
an observer in these terrible sky-machines--"

She was interrupted by a gay little peal of laughter from Morgana.

"Terrible?--Oh, dear 'Duchess,' you are too funny! There's nothing
'terrible' about MY 'sky-machine!' Do you ever read poetry? No?--Well
then you don't know that lovely and prophetic line of Keats--"

'Beautiful things made new
For the surprise of the sky-children.'

"Poets are always prophetic,--that is, REAL poets, not modern verse
mongers; and I fancy Keats must have imagined something in the far
distant future like my 'White Eagle!' For it really IS 'a beautiful
thing made new'--a beautiful natural fo