The stern, brave, wild spirit, in which what seemed unfeminine was yet, if I may so say, still womanly, did not recoil, it rather captivated Glyndon.

He answered readily, briefly, and freely, "Fillide,--yes!" Oh, "yes!" forsooth, Clarence Glyndon! Every light nature answers "yes" lightly to such a question from lips so rosy! Have a care,--have a care! Why the deuce, Mejnour, do you leave your pupil of four-and-twenty to the mercy of these wild cats-a-mountain! Preach fast, and abstinence, and sublime renunciation of the cheats of the senses! Very well in you, sir, Heaven knows how many ages old; but at four-and-twenty, your Hierophant would have kept you out of Fillide's way, or you would have had small taste for the Cabala.
And so they stood, and talked, and vowed, and whispered, till the girl's mother made some noise within the house, and Fillide bounded back to the distaff, her finger once more on her lip.
"There is more magic in Fillide than in Mejnour," said Glyndon to himself, walking gayly home; "yet on second thoughts, I know not if I quite so well like a character so ready for revenge.

But he who has the real secret can baffle even the vengeance of a woman, and disarm all danger!" Sirrah! dost thou even already meditate the possibility of treason?
Oh, well said Zanoni, "to pour pure water into the muddy well does but disturb the mud.".