Phyllis of Philistia

y, and had given him some account of the representation of the play at the Parthenon. Her father was delighted to find her in high spirits. So many people come back fr

ed away by her own powers of description, and began to act the bits that had impressed her-bit

deal through which she had passed-having to dismiss at a moment's notice the man whom she had promised to marry!) He had certainly never seen anything so fascinating a

e country in jeopardy, and had precipitated the downfall of the ministry and the annihilation of his party as a political factor; not this man, but another, who had referred to Trafalgar Square as the private thoroughfare of the crown. The scene had been an animated one, and Mr. Ayrton had hoped to derive a good deal of pleasure from describ

had interpreted a story which thrilled the imagination of generation after generation, and he felt that Parliament was a paltry thing. Parliament-what was Parliament? The wrangle

to keep you out of your bed. You have had a weary night, I

Phyllis," he added solemnly, "an I

leep," said she, putting her arms around his neck. "Good-night, pa

nothing to stimulate my imagination. Practical politics has not yet discovered a good working

satisfactory retort-verbal, of co

Commons, during the past year or two; and the worst of th

d an ample acquaintance with the jargon of diplomacy. "I don't

rreling up an entry over a rotte

made by French artists before the lovely daughter of Maria Teresa went to her death. She switched on the lights in t

e Parthenon that her thoughts went out; but to the words which

rds wer

he had, she knew, been of the greatest help to her father in his political life, not merely turning her memory to good account in discovering the incautious phrases in the speeches of the men who were foolish enough to be his opponents, but actually advising him, when he asked her, on many matters about which the newspapers had been full. Then she had taken an active part in more than one of those "mo

ate, the other young women, whom she had been watching with interest, had bought their brilliant blouses with the

these aspirations,

her ears all the time Ella ha

g the consideration of the questions of orthodoxy and the oth

hy of the aspiration of a woman? She could not say that that had been the drift of her large discourse. What she had said had

and yet-

ween the various component parts of a book which is profitable in every line, she had accustomed herself to read the chapters in consecutive order from The Genesis to The Revelation. Sometimes, when she found herself face to face of a night with a purely genealogical chapter, Phyllis of Philistia had difficulty in crushing down her unworthy desire to turn

ames upon these occasions, and the blessing of the wo

e and his hosts were besieged in their earthworks, and how the three mighty men had made

e end, but all through it those

of blood; it is t

f her white night-dress, in a posture that would have made the most human atheist believe in the

of the natives of New Guinea. Paradise? Who had named those birds the birds of paradise? She recollected how the feathers which Ella had whirled about had held in the very center of every wonderful disc of rich purple, edged with unequal radiating lines of gold, a single spot of brilliant crimson, with a tiny star of silver in the center. The effect of the sunlight

adi

d been plucked from a tame pheasant? And now she was

the white pillow beside her head, the crimson stains of the feathers that had been snatched out of the dripping red h

-that man had talked with her upon such trifles as books and plays, strange pageants enacted among paper and canvas unrealities of life. She had actually been leaning against some of these painted scenes while the man who ha

on her mind. She did not stop to think whether or not he had spoken as a man with intellect would speak; whether he had spoken as a man whose orthodoxy was beyond suspicion woul

d said her bedside prayer, she might have defined in precisely the same words as she had spoken to her frie

st man in the wo

asleep for a co