sudden use in some of those daily thickening perils, of which I could
see no other sign than occasional evidence that my steps were watched
and dogged. Both vehicles enlisted the interest and curiosity of
Eunane and her companions. Eveena, after examining with as much
attention as was due to the trouble I took to explain it, the
construction of the carriage, concentrated her interest and
observation upon the balloon, the sight of which evidently impressed
her. When we had returned to the peristyle, and the rest had
dispersed, I said--

"I see you apprehend some part of my reasons for purchasing the
balloon. The carriage will take us to-morrow to Altasfe (a town some
ten miles distant). 'Shopping' is an amusement so gratifying to all
women on Earth, from the veiled favourites of an Eastern seraglio to
the very unveiled dames of Western ballrooms, that I suppose the
instinct must be native to the sex wherever women and trade co-exist.
If you have a single feminine folly, you will enjoy this more than you
will own. If you are, as they complain, absolutely faultless, you will
enjoy with me the pleasure of the girls in plaguing one after another
all the traders of Altasfe:" and with these words I placed in her
hands a packet of the thin metallic plates constituting their
currency. Her extreme and unaffected surprise was amusing to witness.

"What am I to do with this?" she inquired, counting carefully the
uncounted pile, in a manner which at once dispelled my impression that
her surprise was due to childish ignorance of its value.

"Whatever you please, Madonna; whatever can please you and the
others."

"But," she remonstrated, "this is more than all our dowries for
another year to come; and--forgive me for repeating what you seem
purposely to forget--I cannot cast the shadow between my equals and
the master. Would you so mortify _me_ as to make me take from Eunane's
hand, for example, what should come from yours?"

"You are right, Madonna, now as always," I owned; wincing at the name
she used, invariably employed by the others, but one I never endured
from her. Her looks entreated pardon for the form of the implied
reproof, as I resumed the larger part of the money she held out to me,
forcing back the smaller into her reluctant hands. "But what has the
amount of your dowries to do with the matter? The contracts are meant,
I suppose, to secure the least to which a wife has a right, not to fix
her natural share in her h