set upon so slender and proud a throat that she appeared taller
than she actually was. Her figure was most exquisitely rounded and
proportioned, and she came across the room to give me greeting with a
sort of gliding graceful movement, like that of a stately swan floating
on calm sunlit water. Her complexion was transparently clear--most
purely white, most delicately rosy, Her eyes--large, luminous and dark
as night, fringed with long silky black lashes--looked like

"Fairy lakes, where tender thoughts
Swam softly to and fro."

Her rich black hair was arranged a la Marguerite, and hung down in one
long loose thick braid that nearly reached the end of her dress, and
she was attired in a robe of deep old gold Indian silk as soft as
cashmere, which was gathered in round her waist by an antique belt of
curious jewel-work, in which rubies and turquoises seemed to be thickly
studded. On her bosom shone a strange gem, the colour and form of which
I could not determine. It was never the same for two minutes together.
It glowed with many various hues--now bright crimson, now
lightning-blue, sometimes deepening into a rich purple or tawny orange.
Its lustre was intense, almost dazzling to the eye. Its beautiful
wearer gave me welcome with a radiant smile and a few cordial words,
and drawing me by the hand to the low couch she had just vacated, made
me sit down beside her. Heliobas had disappeared.

"And so," said Zara--how soft and full of music was her voice!--"so you
are one of Casimir's patients? I cannot help considering that you are
fortunate in this, for I know my brother's power. If he says he will
cure you, you may be sure he means it. And you are already better, are
you not?"

"Much better," I said, looking earnestly into the lovely star-like eyes
that regarded me with such interest and friendliness. "Indeed, to-day I
have felt so well, that I cannot realize ever having been ill."

"I am very glad," said Zara, "I know you are a musician, and I think
there can be no bitterer fate than for one belonging to your art to be
incapacitated from performance of work by some physical obstacle. Poor
grand old Beethoven! Can anything be more pitiful to think of than his
deafness? Yet how splendidly he bore up against it! And Chopin, too--so
delicate in health that he was too often morbid even in his music.
Strength is needed to accomplish great things--the double strength of
body and soul."

"Are you, too, a musician