little flames intensified, while floor and ceiling caught fire after
the same ghostly incandescent fashion; a great dry heat filled the vast
apartment, and, still spreading, the flames covered her chair, her
garments, her entire person. At this point the inevitable thunder began
to roll; three and one and two great thunders, after which came five
breathings upon her face, and after those breathings five radiant
spirits appeared, the first act closing impressively with a final salvo
of artillery.

The unhappy Baphomet, dismayed by these extreme proceedings, vanished
entirely, and, no expense being spared through the whole of the costly
tableaux, Lucifer manifested on a throne of diamonds, but whether the
gems were furnished from the treasury of Avernus or from the pockets of
bamboozled Freemasons through the wide world, _les renseignements_ do
not state. Need I say that Miss Vaughan's first impulse was to fall in
worship at his feet? But the sordid apparition, instead of accepting the
homage with the grace which is native to empire, had recourse to the
method of the novelist, and stayed her intention by a gesture. Even at
this late date, and with the millstone of her conversion placed in the
opposite scale, Miss Vaughan's description of her quondam deity would
tempt sentimental young women to forgive all his devildom to a being so
"superb" in "masculine beauty." I will refrain from spoiling the picture
by much of her own minuteness, or by the exclamatory parentheses of her
fury against the magnificent gentleman who deceived her. I should like
also to omit all reference to the conversation which ensued between
them, but for the sake of true art I am constrained to state that
Lucifer descended to commonplace. M. Renan tells us that since he left
Saint Sulpice he did nothing but degenerate, and the inference is
obvious, that he ought to have gone back to Saint Sulpice, despite the
literary splendours of the _Vie de Jesus_. Since he last broke a lance
with Michael, the devil has debilitated mentally, and the substance of
his _causerie_ with Diana reminds one of Robert Montgomery and even
worse exemplars. In the unexplored regions of penny periodical romance I
have met with many better specimens of supernatural dialogue. As to the
sum of his observations, it goes without saying that Diana was chosen
out of thousands, and this is what justifies my opinion that his
proceedings on this occasion were more fatuous than any of his