ke of Istria, and of those other enamored lords. And Dom
Manuel began to regard her more intently.

In Manuel's sandals the average person would have reflected, long before
this, that Manuel and his wife and child were in this sorcerous place at
the mercy of the whims and the unwholesome servitors of this not very
dependable looking witch-woman. The average person would have
recollected distastefully that unusual panther and that discomfortable
night-porter and the madness which had smitten Duke Asmund's men, and
the clattering vicious little hoofs of the shrill dwarfs; and to the
average person this room would have seemed a desirable place to be many
leagues away from.

But candid blunt Dom Manuel said, with jovial laughter: "You speak as if
you had not grown more adorable every day, dear Freydis, and as though I
would not be vastly flattered to think I had any part in the
improvement. You should not fish thus unblushingly for compliments."

The sombre glitterings that were her eyes had narrowed, and she was
looking at his hands. Then Freydis said: "There are pin-points of sweat
upon the back of your hands, gray Manuel, and so alone do I know that
you are badly frightened. Yes, you are rather wonderful, even now."

"I am not unduly frightened, but I am naturally upset by what has just
happened. Anybody would be. For I do not know what I must anticipate in
the future, and I wish that I had never meddled in this mischancy
business of creating things I cannot manage."

Queen Freydis moved in shimmering splendor toward the fireplace. She
paused there, considerately looking down at the small contention of
flames. "Did you not, though, again create much misery when for your
pleasure you gave life to this girl child? Certainly you must know that
there will be in her life--if life indeed be long spared to her," said
Freydis, reflectively,--"far less of joy than of sorrow, for that is the
way it is with the life of everybody. But all this likewise is out of
your hands. In Sesphra and in the child and in me you have lightly
created that which you cannot control. No, it is I who control the
outcome."

Now a golden panther came quite noiselessly into the room, and sat to
the right of Freydis, and looked at Dom Manuel.

"Why, to be sure," says Manuel, heartily, "and I am sure, too, that
nobody is better qualified to handle it. Come now, Freydis, just as you
say, this is a serious situation, and something really ought to be d