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leaves me very sad afterwards. I was lying on the sofa, feeling certainly not sleepy, but full of mental visions. I suddenly became aware of a spirit which seemed to spring to the window at the foot of my couch, and rest there, sitting on the sill and looking at me. He sat there apparently, yet he must have been unconscious of the actual window, for he certainly sat on the sill, and yet the window being closed made no difference to himhe sat there as if it was open. He fascinated me, and I lay, looking, trying to realise the picture of beauty before me, when suddenly he sprang right upon me, threw his arms around my neck, and lay, with his head thrown back, laughing into my face with a kind of ecstatic delight. I, charmed, wondering, could only look, and answer his kisses, until at last I roused myself and said to him (in the spirit), You beautiful creature, how shall I enable you to speak? 'Oh!' he answered instantly, 'if I were to speak I should sing.' And having said this he sprang away from me and disappeared. I lay for a moment, lost in the thought of what he had said, when suddenly I realised he had left me. 'Oh, Ariel,' I said aloud in the spirit,' need you leave me so soon? And then, as if in answer, he came in at the door of the room, and I understood that he had been amusing or interesting himself by looking at the other chambers of the house. I looked more closely at him as he crossed the room, in order to retain his picture. He was dressed absolutely in nothing but flowers. A thick girdle of smiling blossoms encircled his loins, and a merry wreath was in his hair. There was no other garment upon him, and I could see plainly his delicate pink flesh. His face I could not clearly see, and I cannot

Oh,

describe it. I could only catch its expression, which was all full of passing delight. Throughout his form was a look as of exquisite mischievousness. Anything equal to his grace of movement I have never dreamed of. Suddenly I saw a chair which does not materially exist in my room, and which I had never seen before. It was a little wooden chair, an armchair of quaint pattern, made of rich brown wood, and studded with silver nails. He drew this chair to the front of the fire, and threw himself back with his peculiar action as of subdued ecstacy-held his bare shining feet out to the warmth, and his head, with its crown of flowers, hung back over the chair. Ariel!' I said (why I called him this I cannot say, but I did-probably merely because of his spritelike-ness) you will stay with me! I cannot do without you now I have once seen you.' He was laughing to himself-peals of silvery laughter-when I spoke. At my words he changed his mood. 'No,' he said, I shall not stay with you while you are here-it's too smoky;' and with that he disappeared altogether. Oh, I cannot tell you how empty the room was when he was gone!"-and she clasped her hands together in mute expression of that bygone pain. is very curious," said Madonna, looking at the girl with a face of wonder, and feeling, perhaps more than anything else, a pity for Maurice at her heart; "it is very curious to see how you seem to realise this Ariel; and yet you cannot give me one tangible proof that he exists."

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"No," said Bopeep, and then added timidly, "except that he helps me play; and you know how I have improved since I have known him."

"You have certainly taken a wonderful step in your music lately,"

answered Madonna; "but that proves nothing to us ordinary mortals. Tell me how you have seen him since, because he said he would not stay with you here, in the smoke, didn't he?"

"Oh! he takes me away with him now," said Bopeep, with a joyous smile.

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Takes you away with him!" cried Madonna with a certain alarm in her manner. "My dear child, what do you mean?'

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You know how of late music, or indeed any emotion, throws me into a state of physical unconsciousness. That is what I mean. I go with him then."

66 'You must think me very stupid," said Madonna, "but I am really not much wiser. I know you are subject to attacks of some sort of trance, which alarm me very much; but how you make that out to be going away with Ariel I cannot guess.

Bopeep looked at her and smiled -a little happy smile, that made Madonna feel as if the child were looking over her shoulder into the world-sanded eternity."

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'You don't realise very distinctly, perhaps," she said, "that these bodies are not ourselves, but only an overcoat we wear in this cold world. Ariel takes me with him from cold into warmth, so that I can leave my body behind me: he takes me from darkness into light, from time into eternity."

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Suppose," suggested Madonna rather timidly, "that, instead of telling me what he does, you tell me how he does it? I might be able to understand you better."

"I don't know how he does it," said Bopeep," but I can tell you what it feels like to me. You know last night when I came off the stage I was in that state you describe as trance, and could not respond to the encore?

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"I know you frightened me

terribly," was Madonna's remark. Bopeep did not notice it, but went straight on.

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"It happened in this way. began to feel as soon as I touched my bow that Ariel was with me: my very arm seemed held and guided by him. I never noticed the audience, but all the while was trying to obey and please him, and longing to see him and meet his smile. It came at last-my reward -for just as the last notes were being drawn-it seemed to me now hardly at all by me-out of my violin, I saw him clearly at ny side, his face alight with laughter. 'Come,' he said, and I put my hand in his. In a moment I knew I was myself, without what I call my coat of flesh; for my feet were bare: and oh!-the ground was so cold which they touched. But he helped me with his smile: and I saw before me a flight of stone steps, rising as it were out of darkAt the top of them I saw light-and in its gleam a cloud of laughing faces. I found courage to step up, for I felt each higher step warmer beneath my feet-and when I reached the topmost, peals of laughter which seemed to come out of the very soul of music, so exquisite was their harmony, welcomed me."

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heard his call come up to me, and knew that it was time to return. And then it was-only last night, when his voice reached me in the other world as I stood by Ariel's side that I finally knew myself wicked in not breaking the bond between us."

“Well, well," said Madonna, "but tell me about returning."

6

"The call came to me, and I at once approached the steps, and prepared to descend. I hesitated and drew back when I put my foot down-for the chill of that first downward step struck into my very soul. Ariel was with me, and many others whose forms were aflame with warmth and colour, and whose voices were music. I turned back, and implored them to let me remain with them. No, it was inevitable; I must go down. Come with me then,' I cried to Ariel, 'I cannot bear this cold alone.' 'No,' he said, 'I help you to come up, but you must go down alone.' So I turned and resolutely stepped downwards, facing the dark, and bearing the increasing cold of each. step as it struck into my feet. Then, as I was descending, I suddenly felt a new warmth upon my bare shoulders; and looking I saw that Ariel had flung to me, from where he stood smiling at the top, a kind of cloud of white roses, which clung softly together, and nestled warmly upon me. That gave me courage to take the last step, and made me able to smile when I awoke; but it hurt my heart when Maurice said, 'Why child, how happy you look,' because I knew that my happy look came, not from meeting his eyes as he fancied, but from having caught the glow of other eyes, whose love light can fire my own as Maurice's never can."

They were silent after this. Bopeep put her head back upon her chair wearily and looked at the

flowers she still held in her hand. After a little silence Madonna rose, walked restlessly to the window, and then came back to her friend's side.

"Do you know," she said, "that you have already inade Maurice feel something of this, and he is so tender towards you he dared not ask you about it himself. He wanted me to find out from you what made you shrink from him. What am I to tell him?"

"What I have said," replied Boopeep wearily but resolutely.

"Be careful," said Madonna; pause before you break the heart of such a man as Maurice for the sake of a-well-a vision."

"Don't you turn against me, Madonna," said Bopeep in a subdued voice sadder than any loud protest; "I have no friend but you in this heartless world."

"You have Maurice," said Madonna almost sternly.

"No," said Bopeep; "he will not be my friend. If he would, he would come straight to me and try to discover what is right. He is a lover as men love in this selfish world."

"He is not selfish!" exclaimed Madonna hotly.

"No?" said Bopeep, in that peculiar voice of assent which means that discussion is at an end.

"And I am really to tell him what you have said?" asked Madonna again, with contracting brows.

"Yes," said Bopeep, "if you will be so good."

May you be forgiven," said Madonna, "if you let these hallucinations of yours carry you too far. Maurice may not be a saint; but he is solid all through, and you will repent it if you wound him thoughtlessly."

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determined to do right by him. Make him understand that!"

"I will if I can," said Madonna; "good-bye," and, gathering up her her silken train, she went out.

Bopeep stood silent where she was and looked at the door Madonna had closed behind her. She knew that in this first conscientious effort to follow the law of her nature, to obey the pure impulses of her being, she had weakened even Madonna's friendship for her. The inevitable punishment of all who obey inspiration now fell upon her-reaction and a sense of deep despair. Until the hour came when she must dress for the theatre she sat in her room in an attitude of despondency, which must have softened Madonna's heart could she have seen it.

II.

"And thou shalt know of things unknown, If thou wilt let me rest between The veiny lids whose fringe is thrown

Over thine eyes so dark and sheen." FACES, SO many faces crowding in upon her consciousness.

That was how it seemed to Bopeep as she came that evening upon the stage of the Gem Theatre. She looked round upon the public which applauded her and saw faces

faces.

She saw no souls. Doubtless some were there, but hidden behind some mask of affectation or conventionality. Doubtless there were many full of sweetness and affection, but Bopeep could not feel them amid that crowd, which did but impress her with her own isolation. She had raised her eyes with a forlorn hope that she might meet some glance which would give her strength. The coolness of Madonna's greeting, and Maurice's strange glance at her when he met her had chilled her heart as she entered the theatre; and as she

stepped on the stage she had said to herself, "I will look round and see if there are none to help and encourage me in this world." But her eyes had learned to look for that brilliant expression which was in Ariel's face, and these rows of people ranged about the theatre, looking at her with blind eyes, unable to see her soul struggle,theirs seemed to her to be faces, and only faces.

"I am alone in the world," she said to herself, as she stood an instant before her audience, her eyes passing over the crowd of people; and on the instant she again resolved more passionately than ever to live altogether for that pale dream of love which had so brightened and made glorious her whole existence.

As the silent vow was registered in her heart her golden vision came before her eyes, and she saw no longer the dull sea of human faces, but the flower-crowned beauty of her phantom lover. The smile came upon her lips which played about them when in her ecstacy she outdid her own genius, and brought melody as from the very soul of music herself.

"It will not do, dear child," said Ariel, with his happy laugh; "you must not play bo-peep between two worlds, like this.'

She heard his merry voice, and yielded herself completely to him, scarcely conscious of the fact that his musical laugh passed as it were through her soul, and put a marvellous sweetness into the notes she drew from her violin. When her solo was over, she mechanically turned to leave the stage, with her eyes inturned still upon the vision which inspired her; but she was startled by such an applause as she had never heard before. The house actually rose upon her, and the girl, looking in her sudden arousal like a frightened child, stood with

parted lips and wide-opened eyes gazing in wonder at the scene of wild enthusiasm before her. Her presence of mind had totally deserted her she stood motionless; and then suddenly, with a gesture of fear rather than of acknowledgment, ran off the stage. Maurice met her and stopped her. "You must go on again-you must give them an encore. My God, child, what a triumph this is! How proud I am of you! But you must go back, to-night. They would not listen to anyone else!"

"Oh, I cannot, I cannot!" she exclaimed. 66 Spare me, Maurice!" she entreated, in her distress, quite regardless of the little crowd of the habitués of the theatre which had gathered about them. The noise was absolutely deafening, from the theatre; the house was absolutely determined to have her. Maurice could not resist her appeal, and he motioned to the others that the opera should continue; but the instant that the next performer appeared the noise grew positively alarming. Maurice turned pale. "We shall have a riot," he said. "If you love me, Bopeep, give them an encore."

"I cannot go on, alone," said sadly.

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"What do you mean ? he asked, perplexed.

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Ariel is not here,” she said. "Oh!" cried Maurice with a manner that turned the innocent ejaculation into a curse. "Forget these visions now and remember facts. The theatre will be torn to pieces if you refuse to go on. What does it mean, that you should refuse? Do you want to drive me to distraction? Either it is that, or you are mad!"

She gave him a strange look, and then said, humbly, "I am no longer alone, Ariel is here. I will go on again."

And taking up her violin, she

stepped before that public which seemed to her in its selfishness more heartless and cruel than ever before. Unsupported by that flower-crowned being who made her strong by his presence, she dared not in her timidity have faced their furious plaudits. With that vision before her she could forget the audience, and so find courage and inspiration to once more stand apparently alone upon the stage, her violin in her hand, and by a few soft notes still the intense excitement into as intense a silence.

She went trembling off the stage, amid another thunder of applause. She was overstrung, and held in her that combination of unnatural strength and overpowering weakness which is the familiar accompaniment of inspiration. She longed for a friend's hand to put hers into. Maurice was waiting for her at the wing. He held out his hand to her as she came off. She half put out her own, and then, hesitating, raised her eyes to his. He was looking at her with a strange expression. "Tell me, Bopeep," he said, "here amid this noise of applause which follows you, do you love me, or not?

"If you will have the truth in few words, and I have not strength for many," she answered, "I do not love you as I thought I did."

"Like all women, you are incapable of constancy," he said bitterly. "Don't say that!" she cried with a gesture of distress.

"But it is true," answered Maurice. He had written too many plays to retain a capacity for clear justice; play-writing trains the mind into a habit of shallow generalising. "Tell me," he said. suddenly, "what has changed you?"

"I had never seen Ariel when I said I thought I loved you,"

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