g power of the future. Given patience, all in good time
she would understand everything worth understanding.--That there are
things in life best not understood, or understood only at your peril, she
already in some sort divined.--Hence her reading although of the order
obnoxious to pedants, as lacking in method and accurate scholarship, went
to produce a mental atmosphere in which honest love of letters and of
art, along with generous instincts of humanity quicken and thrive.

On this particular morning Damaris elected to explore to the Near East,
in the vehicle of Eoethen's virile and luminous prose. She sat in one of
the solid wide seated arm-chairs at the fire-place end of a long room,
near a rounded window, the lower sash, of which she raised to its full
height. Outside the row of geranium beds glowed scarlet and crimson in
the calm light. Beyond them the turf of the lawn was overspread by
trailing gossamers, and delicate cart-wheel spider's webs upon which the
dew still glittered. In the shrubberies robins sang; and above the river
great companies of swallows swept to and fro, with sharp twitterings,
restlessly gathering for their final southern flight.

No sooner had Damaris fairly settled down with her book, than Mustapha
jumped upon her knees; and after, preliminary buttings and tramplings,
curled himself round in gross comfort, his soft lithe body growing warmer
and heavier, on her lap, as his sleep deepened. Where a bar of sunshine
crossed the leather inset of the writing-table, just beside her in the
window, Geraldine--his counterpart as to markings and colouring, but
finer made, more slender of barrel and of limb--fitted herself into the
narrow space between a silver inkstand and a stack of folded newspapers,
her fore-paws tucked neatly under her chest, furry elbows outward. Her
muzzle showed black, as did the rims of her eyelids which enhanced the
brightness and size of her clear, yellow-green eyes. Her alert, observant
little head was raised, as, with gently lashing tail, she watched an
imprisoned honey-bee buzzing angrily up and down between the
window-sashes.

An elfin creature, Geraldine,--repaying liberal study. Scornfully secure
of the potency of her own charms where mankind, or Tomcat-kind, might be
concerned, royally devoid of morals, past-mistress in all sprightly,
graceful, feline devilries, she was yet a fond mother, solicitous to the
point of actual selflessness regarding the safety and well-be