With this apologetic prelude Manito marshaled his choristers along the borders of the dependent curves of the petals facing his bewildered auditors and rendered the following stanzas with an effect that revived them from their superstitious fears:—
“From darkness dread, the dawn appears! Mother of day, whose dewy tears, Distilled from the labors of the night, Greet with joy, the sun birth of light.
“Hail, glorious mother of morn! Beautiful type of woman’s form, When hallowed from instinctive night, She hails, at birth, a son of light.”
M. Hollydorf recalling the occasion and source of inspiration, glanced at Correliana with a furtive look of anguish. For the prompting source of the stanzas, was a longing desire that woman’s beauty should be adorned with more lasting “graces” than those bestowed by the fashionable dressmaker, dancing master, and boarding-school mistress, in hopeful premonition of an immortality with joys exceeding the gossiping allurements of a heaven of sense. The look of sympathy he received in return banished from his thoughts doubts, and suspicions of supernatural agency. Manito, observing the confidence expressed in his glance, and the more ready belief of Mr. Welson and Dow, that the Manatitlans in reality represented a diminutive department of human mortality, said, that as his mission for the day had been fulfilled in degree beyond expectation, they would not prejudice their success by prolonging the interview, but would leave them with a new zest for the transmission of one of their best melodies. He then rearranged his choristers and rendered “Home, sweet home,” with an effect that caused them to join in thought sympathy with the affectionate harmony of Manatitlan expression. At the close the prætor and tribunes of Maniculæ bid their first giga audience good-by, and disappeared from view. Correliana then signaled the stoop of her favorite falcon Merlin from his circling wafts above the latifundium; after a short perch of a few moments upon her wrist, he was despatched, as she announced, to Maniculæ, bearing back the prætor, Manito, and tribunes.
Mr. Welson was the first to break silence after their departure, with a long drawn,—“Whew,” as a prelude to the exclamation, “Ah, ha! mistress Correliana, we have the secret now to all your mysterious enactments, which inclined those the least superstitiously prejudiced to credit you with an inheritance tinctured with the pretensions of your sibylline ancestry. But our wondering amazement is scarcely less than it would have been under the superstitious impression that you really possessed the power invoked by the ancient sibyl. Still the manifestation of a visible source, however small, is far more agreeable to our perceptions.”