omfortable.

The peculiar color and luxuriance of Balder's hair and beard were
marked attributes of the Helwyse line. In these days of ponderous
genealogies, who would be surprised to learn that the family sprang
from that Balder, surnamed the Beautiful, who was the sun-god of
Scandinavian mythology? Certain of his distinctive characteristics,
both physical and mental, would appear to have been perpetuated with
marvellous distinctness throughout the descent; above all, the golden
locks, the blue eyes, and the sunny disposition.

For the rest, so far as sober history can trace them back, they seem
to have been a noble and adventurous race of men, loving the sea, but
often taking a high part in the political affairs of the nation. The
sons were uniformly fair, but the daughters dark,--owing, it was said,
to the first mother of the line having been a dark-eyed woman. But the
advent of a dark-eyed heir had been foretold from the earliest times,
not without ominous (albeit obscure) hints as to the part he would
play in the family history. The precise wording of none of these old
prophecies has come down to us; but they seem in general to have
intimated that the dark-eyed Helwyse would bring the race to a ruinous
and disgraceful end, saving on the accomplishment of conditions too
improbable to deserve recording. The dead must return to life, the
living forsake their identity, love unite the blood of the victim to
that of the destroyer,--and other yet stranger things must happen
before the danger could be averted.

The superstitious reverence paid to enigmatical utterances of this
kind has long ago passed away; and, if any meaning ever attaches to
them, it is apt to be sadly commonplace. Nevertheless, when Balder was
born, and the hereditary blue eyes were found wanting, the
circumstance was doubtless the occasion of much half-serious banter
among those to whom the ominous prophecies were familiar. Certainly
the young man had already made one grave mistake; and he could hardly
have followed it up by a more disgraceful retreat than this to the
hair-dresser's saloon. The ghosts of his heroic forefathers in
Valhalla would disown his shorn head with indignant scorn; for their
golden locks had ever been sacred to them as their honor. When the
Roman Empire was invaded by the Goths and Vandals, a Helwyse--so runs
the tale--was taken prisoner and brought before the Roman General. The
latter summoned a barber and a headsman, and inf