There was a shade of inexpressible sadness in the utterance of these last words.  But Theodore, whose natural tendency was towards scepticism, felt himself almost injured and insulted by the Veiled Lady’s proposal that he should pledge himself, for life and eternity, to so questionable a creature as herself; or even that she should suggest an inconsequential kiss, taking into view the probability that her face was none of the most bewitching.  A delightful idea, truly, that he should salute the lips of a dead girl, or the jaws of a skeleton, or the grinning cavity of a monster’s mouth!  Even should she prove a comely maiden enough in other respects, the odds were ten to one that her teeth were defective; a terrible drawback on the delectableness of a kiss.

“Excuse me, fair lady,” said Theodore, and I think he nearly burst into a laugh, “if I prefer to lift the veil first; and for this affair of the kiss, we may decide upon it afterwards.”

“Thou hast made thy choice,” said the sweet, sad voice behind the veil; and there seemed a tender but unresentful sense of wrong done to womanhood by the young man’s contemptuous interpretation of her offer.  “I must not counsel thee to pause, although thy fate is still in thine own hand!”

Grasping at the veil, he flung it upward, and caught a glimpse of a pale, lovely face beneath; just one momentary glimpse, and then the apparition vanished, and the silvery veil fluttered slowly down and lay upon the floor.  Theodore was alone.  Our legend leaves him there.  His retribution was, to pine forever and ever for another sight of that dim, mournful face,—­which might have been his life-long household fireside joy,—­to desire, and waste life in a feverish quest, and never meet it more.

But what, in good sooth, had become of the Veiled Lady?  Had all her existence been comprehended within that mysterious veil, and was she now annihilated?  Or was she a spirit, with a heavenly essence, but which might have been tamed down to human bliss, had Theodore been brave and true enough to claim her?  Hearken, my sweet friends,—­and hearken, dear Priscilla,—­and you shall learn the little more that Zenobia can tell you.

Just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, when the Veiled Lady vanished, a maiden, pale and shadowy, rose up amid a knot of visionary people, who were seeking for the better life.  She was so gentle and so sad,—­a nameless melancholy gave her such hold upon their sympathies,—­that they never thought of questioning whence she came.  She might have heretofore existed, or her thin substance might have been moulded out of air at the very instant when they first beheld her.  It was all one to them; they took her to their hearts.  Among them was a lady to whom, more than to all the rest, this pale, mysterious girl attached herself.

But one morning the lady was wandering in the woods, and there met her a figure in an Oriental robe, with a dark beard, and holding in his hand a silvery veil.  He motioned her to stay.  Being a woman of some nerve, she did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, as many ladies would have been apt to do, but stood quietly, and bade him speak.  The truth was, she had seen his face before, but had never feared it, although she knew him to be a terrible magician.