She lifted the beautiful goblet from the table, put it to her lips, and
drank a deep draught from it; then, smiling mockingly, she held it towards
him.

"See; I have made myself immortal before you. Will you drink?"

He eagerly held out his hand to receive the goblet, but Sibyl, holding it
beyond his reach a moment, deliberately let it fall upon the hearth, where
it shivered into fragments, and the bright, cold water of immortality was
all spilt, shedding its strange fragrance around.

"Sibyl, what have you done?" cried Septimius in rage and horror.

"Be quiet! See what sort of immortality I win by it,--then, if you like,
distil your drink of eternity again, and quaff it."

"It is too late, Sibyl; it was a happiness that may never come again in a
lifetime. I shall perish as a dog does. It is too late!"

"Septimius," said Sibyl, who looked strangely beautiful, as if the drink,
giving her immortal life, had likewise the potency to give immortal beauty
answering to it, "listen to me. You have not learned all the secrets that
lay in those old legends, about which we have talked so much. There were
two recipes, discovered or learned by the art of the studious old Gaspar
Felton. One was said to be that secret of immortal life which so many old
sages sought for, and which some were said to have found; though, if that
were the case, it is strange some of them have not lived till our day. Its
essence lay in a certain rare flower, which mingled properly with other
ingredients of great potency in themselves, though still lacking the