llegarde and cutting off Duke Asmund's ugly head, because by right and
by King Ferdinand's own handwriting all Poictesme belongs to you."

"Well, we will let that wait a bit," says Manuel, "for I do not so
heartily wish to be tied down with parchments in a count's gilded seat
as I do to travel everywhither and see the ends of this world and judge
them. At all events, dear Freydis, I am content enough for the present,
in this little home of ours, and public affairs can wait."

"Still, something ought to be done about it," said Freydis. And, since
Manuel displayed an obstinate prejudice against any lethal plague, she
put the puckerel curse upon Asmund, by which he was afflicted with all
small bodily ills that can intervene between corns and dandruff.

On Upper Morven Freydis had reared by enchantment a modest home, that
was builded of jasper and porphyry and yellow and violet breccia.
Inside, the stone walls were everywhere covered with significant
traceries in low relief, and were incrusted at intervals with disks and
tesserae of turquoise-colored porcelain. The flooring, of course, was of
zinc, as a defence against the unfriendly Alfs, who are at perpetual war
with Audela, and, moreover, there was a palisade, enclosing all, of
peeled willow wands, not buttered but oiled, and fastened with unknotted
ribbons.

Everything was very simple and homelike, and here the servitors of
Freydis attended them when there was need. The fallen Queen was not a
gray witch--not in appearance certainly, but in her endowments, which
were not limited as are the powers of black witches and white witches.
She instructed Dom Manuel in the magic of Audela, and she and Manuel had
great times together that spring and summer, evoking ancient dis-crowned
gods and droll monsters and instructive ghosts to entertain them in the
pauses between other pleasures.

They heard no more, for that turn, of the clay figure to which they had
given life, save for the news brought, by a bogglebo, that as the
limping gay young fellow went down from Morven the reputable citizenry
everywhere were horrified because he went as he was created,
stark-naked, and this was not considered respectable. So a large
tumble-bug came from the west, out of the quagmires of Philistia and
followed after the animated figure, yelping and spluttering, "Morals,
not art!" And for that while, the figure went out of Manuel's saga, thus
malodorously accompanied.

"But we will make a much