‘Ah, but no more men will spling, you see—!’

’There is no telling.  I sometimes feel as if they must, and shall.  The tlees blossom, the thunder lolls, the air makes me lun and leap, the glound is full of lichness, and I hear the voice of the Lord God walking all among the tlees of the folests.’

As she said this, I saw her under-lip push out and tremble, as when she is near to crying, and her eyes moisten:  but a moment after she looked at me full, and smiled, so mobile is her face:  and as she looked, it suddenly struck me what a noble temple of a brow the creature has, almost pointed at the uplifted summit, and widening down like a bell-curved Gothic arch, draped in strings of frizzy hair which anon she shakes backward with her head.

‘Clodagh,’ I said after some minutes—­’do you know why I called you Clodagh?’

‘No?  Tell me?’

’Because once, long ago before the poison-cloud, I had a lover called Clodagh:  and she was a....’

‘But tell me first,’ cries she:  ’how did one know one’s lover, or one’s wife, flom all the others?’

‘Well, by their faces....’

‘But there must have been many faces—­all alike—­’

‘Not all alike.  Each was different from the rest.’

’Still, it must have been vely clever to tell.  I can hardly conceive any face, except yours and mine.’

‘Ah, because you are a little goose, you see.’

‘What was a goose like?’

’It was a thing like a butterfly, only larger, and it kept its toes always spread out, with a skin stretched between.’

’Leally?  How caplicious!  And am I like that?—­but what were you saying that your lover, Clodagh, was?’

‘She was a Poisoner.’

‘Then why call me Clodagh, since I am not a poisoner?’

’I call you so to remind me:  lest you—­lest you—­should become my—­lover, too.’

‘I am your lover already:  for I love you.’

‘What, girl?’

‘Do I not love you, who are mine?’

‘Come, come, don’t be a little maniac!’ I went.  ’Clodagh was a poisoner....’

‘Why did she poison?  Had she not enough dates and wine?’

‘She had, yes:  but she wanted more, more, more, the silly idiot.’

’So that the vices and climes were not confined to those that lacked things, but were done by the others, too?’

‘By the others chiefly.’

‘Then I see how it was!’

‘How was it?’

’The others had got spoiled.  The vices and climes must have begun with those who lacked things, and then the others, always seeing vices and climes alound them, began to do them, too—­as when one rotten olive is in a bottle, the whole mass soon becomes collupted:  but originally they were not rotten, but only became so.  And all though a little carelessness at the first.  I am sure that if more men could spling now—­’