your envy." She had passed through the door before the last words were
said, but I saw that her look was not forbidding.

.........................

Is there unhappiness anywhere? There is not a vexing toss of the sea,
not a cloud in the sky. Is not catastrophe dead, and the arrows of
tragedy spilled? Peace broadens into deep, perfumed dusk towards Arabia;
languor spreads towards the unknown lands of the farthest south. No
anxious soul leans out from the casement of life; the time is heavy with
delightful ease. There is no sound that troubles; the world goes by and
no one heeds; for it is all beyond this musky twilight and this pleasant
hour. In this palace on the sea Mirth trails in and out with airy and
harmonious footsteps. Even the clang-clang of eight bells has music--not
boisterous nor disturbing, but muffled in the velvety air. Then, through
this hemisphere of jocund quiet, there sounds the "All's well" of the
watch.

But, look! Did you see a star fall just then, and the long avenue of
expiring flame behind it?--Do not shudder; it is nothing. No cry of pain
came through that brightness. There was only the "All's well" from the
watchers.

The thud of the engines falls on a padded atmosphere, and the lascars
move like ghosts along the decks. The long, smooth promenade is canopied
and curtained, and hung with banners, and gay devices of the gorgeous
East are contributing to the federation of pleasure.

And now, through a festooned doorway, there come the people of many lands
to inhabit the gay court. Music follows their footsteps: Hamlet and