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Still mystified beyond expression, but as thoroughly, as suddenly, relieved from all sense of the spectral and unearthly; scorning also to wear out my brain with the fret of a trivial though insoluble riddle, I just bundled together stole, veil, and bandages, thrust them beneath my pillow, lay down, listened till I heard the wheels of Madame's home-returning fiacre, then turned, and worn out by many nights' vigils, conquered, too, perhaps, by the now reacting narcotic, I deeply slept.

The sun went low like a scarlet eggy probing the mother-of-pearl lake with a long red line of shadow, until it wasted into grayness and so disappeared. Then home-returning sails became spiritualized, and moved in mist as in a dream foggy lake and sky, as one body, seeming to push in upon the land.

But not, as usual after so long an absence, did he greet Josephine with the tenderness and joy of a home-returning husband. He approached her with clouded brow; with a proud, cold demeanor; with the mien of a ruling master, before whom all must bow, even his wife, even his own heart.

The epigram on the former takes the form of a parody of Catullus' "Phasellus ille," a poem which Vergil had good reason to remember, since Catullus' yacht had been towed up the Mincio past Vergil's home when he was a lad of about thirteen. Indeed we hope he was out fishing that day and shared his catch with the home-returning travelers.

It is otherwise wholly incredible and not to be thought of that the populace should have prepared such a triumph for the young home-returning lord. It is plainly to be seen that all has been settled and arranged beforehand. For it is not merely the offscourings of the streets, but burghers, magistrates, and officials, who have extended a welcome to the Electoral Prince.

At first sight like toy figures, men and horses were now grown life-size. They threatened, in the act of passing, to become gigantic. The sun had set, but it left walls and portals of cloud tinged and rimmed with fire. The horsemen seemed some home-returning aerial race, so straight they rode into the west. The ground shook, the dust rose higher, the figures enlarged, the gallop increased.

By this mischance it happened that the combatants were discovered by a silent male advance-guard of the home-returning congregation, who ran back his footsteps soundless on the grass to spread the splendid news. Sunday or week-day there was no more welcome break in the monotony of life in Beacon Hargate than that afforded by a fight.