beauty (owned now by a girl I know), bowing and singing to the new owner, who exultantly exhibits her as she departs; and into my outstretched arms falls something hideous enough to play Medusa in a tableau, a rag baby with grinning Senegambian lips, rayless owlish eyes, and a concave nose whose nostrils suggest the Catacombs!  Bitter rage and murderous fury possess me, but I am much too wise to show my tempers at the fair; so I hug my ‘consolation prize’, and get away as fast as possible with my treasure, and once safe from observation, box, deride, trample upon it, and toss it into the garret as suitable prey for dust, cobwebs and mildew!  After a time, the keenness of the disappointment dulls, like all other human aches that do not kill, and by degrees I think less vindictively of the despised substitute.  Finally comes a day, when all else failing to amuse me, I creep sheepishly into the attic and pick up the rejected, and persuade myself it is at least better than no doll at all, and forthwith adorn it with rags of finery; but the echoes of ‘La Grande Duchesse’ will always ring in my ears, and through the halo of tears I see ever and anon the prize beauty that was withheld.  The two-edged sword in the diablerie of fate is, that we are ordained to fret after ‘bisc,’ when stuffed rags have been meted out as our share of the fair.”

Leo drew a chair near the divan and seated herself; looking steadily into the velvety black eyes that instead of betraying hid, like a domino, the soul of their owner.

“Alma, better cross empty arms forever over empty heart, than mock your womanhood by acceptance of a ’consolation prize’.”

“We all say that the day after the fair; but wait a few years as I have done; and like all your sisters in the ranks of the disappointed, you will ultimately crawl back to the attic and kiss the thick lips, and try to persuade yourself the nose is not so formidable, though certainly a trifle less classic than Antinous’s!  We set out with our eyes fixed on Vega, blazing above, and flaunt our banner—­’tout ou rien!’—­but when the campaign ends, Vega laughs at us from the horizon, quitting our world; and we console ourselves with a rushlight, and shelter it carefully from the wind with another flag:  ’Quand on n’a pas ce qu’on aime, il faut aimer ce qu’on a!’ Such is the worldly wisdom that comes with ripening years, like the deep stain on the sunny side of a peach.  Moreover, ’folding empty arms,’ is only melodrama metaphor, and ‘empty hearts’ are, begging your pardon, only figments of romantic brains.  Our hearts aren’t empty, more’s the pity!  They hold deep, deep, the image of Vega, and the flare of the tallow eandle on the surface serves as cross lights to dazzle the world, and help us to hide the reflection of our star.  I saw that metaphor in some novel, and recognize its truth.  Do you, my princess?”

“I will never so utterly degrade myself.  I could neither lower my standard, nor sacrifice my ideal,” said Leo, with a touch of scorn in her usually gentle voice.