The Cardinal's Snuff Box

"Sprinkle her with holy water?" laughed the Duchessa. "Have a

care. If she should turn into a black cat, and fly away on a

broomstick, you'd never forgive yourself."

Wherewith she swept on to her carriage, followed by her young

companion.

The sprightly French bays tossed their heads, making the

harness tinkle. The footman mounted the box. The carriage

rolled away.

But Peter remained for quite a minute motionless on the

door-step, gazing, bemused, down the long, straight, improbable

village street, with its poplars, its bridge, its ancient stone

cross, its irregular pink and yellow houses--as improbable as a

street in opera-bouffe. A thin cloud of dust floated after the

carriage, a thin screen of white dust, which, in the sun,

looked like a fume of silver.

"I think I could put my finger on a witch worth two of

Marietta," he said, in the end." And thus we see," he added,

struck by something perhaps not altogether novel in his own

reflection, "how the primary emotions, being perennial, tend to

express themselves in perennial formulae."