it is longer by the breadth of my nail than any of its
contemporaries. In fact, it is two yards long. That is all.
Halicarnassus fired the first gun at it by saying that its
length was to enable one end of it to remain at home while the
other end went with me, so that neither of us should get lost.
This is an allusion to a habit which I and my property have of
finding ourselves individually and collectively left in the
lurch. After this initial shot, everybody considered himself
at liberty to let off his rusty old blunderbuss, and there was
a constant peppering. But my veil never lowered its colors nor
curtailed its resources. Alas! what ridicule and contumely
failed to effect, destiny accomplished. Softness and plenitude
are no shields against the shafts of fate.

I went into the station waiting-room to write a note. I laid
my bonnet, my veil, my packages upon the table. I wrote my
note. I went away. The next morning, when I would have
arrayed myself to resume my journey, there was no veil. I
remembered that I had taken it into the station the night
before, and that I had not taken it out. At the station we
inquired of the waiting-woman concerning it. It is as much as
your life is worth to ask these people about lost articles.
They take it for granted at the first blush that you mean to
accuse them of stealing. "Have you seen a brown veil lying
about anywhere?" asked Crene, her sweet bird-voice warbling
out from her sweet rose-lips. "No, I 'a'n't seen nothin' of
it," says Gnome, with magnificent indifference.

"It was lost here last night," continues Crene, in a
soliloquizing undertone, pushing investigating glances