upon her, and frowning over her. "We might have died together."

"No, live, Septimius," said the girl, whose face appeared to grow bright
and joyous, as if the drink of death exhilarated her like an intoxicating
fluid. "I would not let you have it, not one drop. But to think," and here
she laughed, "what a penance,--what months of wearisome labor thou hast
had,--and what thoughts, what dreams, and how I laughed in my sleeve at
them all the time! Ha, ha, ha! Then thou didst plan out future ages, and
talk poetry and prose to me. Did I not take it very demurely, and answer
thee in the same style? and so thou didst love me, and kindly didst wish
to take me with thee in thy immortality. O Septimius, I should have liked
it well! Yes, latterly, only, I knew how the case stood. Oh, how I
surrounded thee with dreams, and instead of giving thee immortal life, so
kneaded up the little life allotted thee with dreams and vaporing stuff,
that thou didst not really live even that. Ah, it was a pleasant pastime,
and pleasant is now the end of it. Kiss me, thou poor Septimius, one
kiss!"

[_She gives the ridiculous aspect to his scheme, in an airy way_.]

But as Septimius, who seemed stunned, instinctively bent forward to obey
her, she drew back. "No, there shall be no kiss! There may a little poison
linger on my lips. Farewell! Dost thou mean still to seek for thy liquor
of immortality?--ah, ah! It was a good jest. We will laugh at it when we
meet in the other world."

And here poor Sibyl Dacy's laugh grew fainter, and dying away, she seemed
to die with it; for there she was, with that mirthful, half-malign
expression still on her face, but motionless; so that however long
Septimius's life was likely to be, whether a few years or many centuries,