that the dragon dreamed showed faintly in the mist that lay over the
sea. He never dreamed of any rescuing knight. So long as he dreamed,
it was twilight; but when he came up nimbly out of his tank night fell
and starlight glistened on the dripping, golden scales.

There he and his captive either defeated Time or never encountered him
at all; while, in the world we know, raged Roncesvalles or battles yet
to be--I know not to what part of the shore of Romance he bore her.
Perhaps she became one of those princesses of whom fable loves to
tell, but let it suffice that there she lived by the sea: and kings
ruled, and Demons ruled, and kings came again, and many cities
returned to their native dust, and still she abided there, and still
her marble palace passed not away nor the power that there was in the
dragon's spell.

And only once did there ever come to her a message from the world that
of old she knew. It came in a pearly ship across the mystical sea; it
was from an old school-friend that she had had in Putney, merely a
note, no more, in a little, neat, round hand: it said, "It is not
Proper for you to be there alone."



THE QUEST OF THE QUEEN'S TEARS


Sylvia, Queen of the Woods, in her woodland palace, held court, and
made a mockery of her suitors. She would sing to them, she said, she
would give them banquets, she would tell them tales of legendary days,
her jugglers should caper before them, her armies salute them, her