“Since you see the young woman in so poetical a light,” replied she in the same tone, “you had better turn the affair into a ballad. It is a

grand subject, and worthy of supernatural machinery. The storm, the startling knock at the door, the entrance of the sable knight Hollingsworth and this shadowy snow-maiden, who, precisely at the stroke of midnight, shall melt away at my feet in a pool of ice-cold water and give me my death with a pair of wet slippers! And when the verses are written, and polished quite to your mind, I will favor you with my idea as to what the girl really is.”

“Pray let me have it now,” said I; “it shall be woven into the ballad.”

“She is neither more nor less,” answered Zenobia,