k after him by name.

She peeped at the questioner between her fingers, but ventured not
quite to emerge from behind them, as she answered,--her primary
attempt at description,--

"Hiero is--Hiero!"

"And how long have you been here?" inquired Balder with a smile.

Gnulemah forgot her embarrassment in wondering how so remarkable a
creature happened to ask questions whose answers her whole world knew!

"We are always here!" she exclaimed; and added, after a moment's
doubtful scrutiny, "Are you a spirit?"

"An embodied spirit,--yes!" answered he, smiling again.

"One of those I see beyond,"--she pointed towards the cliff,--"that
move and seem to live, but are only shadows in the great picture? No!
for I cannot touch them nor speak with them; they never answer me;
they are shadows." She paused and seemed to struggle with her
bewilderment.

"They are shadows!" repeated Helwyse to himself.

Though no Hermetic philosopher, he was aware of a symbolic truth in
the fanciful dogma. Outside his immediate circle, the world is a
shadow to every man; his fellow-beings are no more than apparitions,
till he grasps them by the hand. So to Gnulemah the cliff and the
garden wall were her limits of real existence. The great picture
outside could be true for her only after she had gone forth and felt
as well as seen it.

Fancy aside, however, was not hers a condition morally and mentally
deplorable? Exquisitely developed in body, must not her mind have
grown rank with weeds,--beautiful perhaps, but poisonous? Herein
Balder fancied he could trace the one-sided influence of his
crack-brained uncle.--Whether his daughter or not, Gnulemah was
evidently a victim of his experimental mania. What particular crotchet
could he have been humoring in this case? Was it an attempt to get
back to the early sense of the human race?

The materials for such an evolution were certainly of tempting
excellence. In point of beauty and apparent natural capacity, Gnulemah
might claim equality with the noblest daughter of the Pharaohs. The
grand primary problem of how to isolate her from all contact with the
outside world was, under the existing circumstances, easy of solution.
Beyond this there needed little positive treatment. Her creed must
arise from her own instinctive and intuitive impressions. Of all
beyond the reach of her hands, she trust to her eyes alone for
information; no marvel, therefore, if her conclusions concerning the
great intangi