To-day what to me are the whitewashed Borgias or the solemn denizens of the Athenaeum reading-room who will slumber over my account of the blameless poisonings of this amiable family?
They are vanity and vexation of a spirit already sore at ease.
As I write the door creaks.

I look up.

Behold Carlotta in hastily slipped on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair streaming loose to her waist, her bare feet flashing pink beneath her night-dress.
"Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!" She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I rose from my chair.
"What is the matter ?" "There is a mouse in my bed." Polyphemus saved the situation by jumping from the sofa and rubbing his back against her feet.
"Take the cat and tell him to kill it," said I, "and go back to bed at once." I must have spoken roughly, for she regarded me with her great eyes full of innocent reproach.
"There, take up the cat and go," I repeated.

"You mustn't come down here looking like that." "I thought I looked very pretty," said Carlotta, moving a step nearer.
I sat down at my writing-table and fixed my eyes on my paper.
"You are like a Houri that has been sent away from Paradise for misbehaviour," I said.
She laughed her curious cooing laugh.
"_Hou!_ Seer Marcous is shocked!" And she ran, away, rubbing Polyphemus's nose against her face.
I wonder if the Devil, having grown infirm, is mixing up his centuries and mistaking me for a mediaeval saint?
Paphnutius for instance, who was visited by such a seductress.

What is the legend?
To get rid of her he burns off his hand, whereupon she falls dead.