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Now, as these children grew, the Vareni flowed thick and rich as the rents, and Ulissa had the best tutors to ply her fingers on glass harpsichords, while Orfea sang her own little songs in thewhile she folded her irls can be Of course, Ulissa sang as beautifully as any flute lass instead of rubies, and sing of unfortunate love and ta arias until her father prayed her give him peace, for he did not approve of opera, and even then she whispered them to he

rself beneath her blankets And of course Orfea, who sewed the gared to have enough silk and tri of her own But even her irl to be allowed to touch, and were resold at market to buy their ht the ver mouse stew and rat stew and mole stew, possum stew and chipmunk stew and weasel stew Her best dress washer mother mended

And when they were grown as tith their heads bent heart-wise, they happened to meet upon the roadside, Orfea on her way to fill her basket with turmeric and blueberries at the market, and Ulissa to have her best boots mended

Can you not see this scene in its proper regalia, staged and sung? The two sopranos in their golden wigs! The glorious set-pieces! We perform The Two Duchesses once a year in their honor—you must come!

So it was—and you htly shoith Ulissa in her ermine and black bodice, with a little crown of netted silver over plush blue linen, and Orfea in her weasel rags, her pluine it, how they each dropped their burdens in shock and surprise, how they touched each other’s peculiar curls, how they exclaimed in wonder!

“Why, you could be irl!” cried Ulissa

“Why should I be your lass! You could as well bemy face?”

“Let us not be eneht have if ere allies!”

And so it was decided Ulissa would go into the slu for her supper, and Orfea would wear ermine and laced corsets Neither was entirely sure that she would be as happy in her new life as in her old, but it seeood a trick not to play it at least once, and besides, Ulissa had seenturned out reasonably well Once a o to rest in the arms of Orfea’s broad-cheeked le day before separating again

For a long while, this was a very satisfactory arrange the actresses of Vareni-side, for her hair was golden and her eyes were blue, and even in these parts it is well enough known that this is the properand her cultured voice, she earned for herself the nicknaht in a shabby bedroom where bottles of perfume stood dusty and dear, where Orfea had boiled water with rose petals and rose hips floating pink and red until soleaned Ulissa would touch these bottles and smile, and think of her far-off friend

Orfea, for her part, learned to dance in very coh she liked the Duke very ard about the eyes She did not dare ask about the golden-haired woman who had once lived there, but on her lace-covered table there were costly oils of frankincense and rosewater and a of her far-off friend

Each , peppered with persimmon trees and coconut shells Orfea would take her weasel-skin dress in hand with joy, and help Ulissa into the black gowns she loved so well, and arrange her fa snood But oneho of her mother’s caterpillar pies and stone tea, she was stopped by a curious sound in a nearby alley, and paused, as girls ought never to do, to listen

It was a clacking and a dragging, and a chirruping and aOrfea, with her curls close around her chin, twisted her weasel-tail belt and peeked around the corner—only to gli up the cobbles She gasped and hid herself, for even poor girls hear stories, and our Orfea kneell that the gaze of the Basilisk turns flesh to stone But oh! Foolhardy Orfea! She had to look again, to have a thing to tell herto tell her friend, who kneell enough all the wonders of the Duke’s residence, and needed nothing less than to hear once more how much better her own shoes were than a pauper’s

It was se pig It was a four-legged serpent covered in a cockerel’s feathers, all black and red and pale gold, and its face twisted into a scaly, peeling, greenish brown beak Upon its head was fixed an iron irl could plainly see Trickles of blood had dried around the bands It moaned and pulled itself up the steep turn, its jaw broken and scabbed Its feet were red sandstone, pocked and prickled, the very stone of the streets and walks and ca up the occasional spark

Now, it is well known that young woolden curls and blue eyes are afflicted with a certain fatal innocence Thus it is that in Ajanabh, where the local coloring tends toward the dark and coppery, there are so irls But in pity, as her folk are cos not to others, Orfea cried out and went to the poor beast—i it in her ar its shattered jaw