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AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE LILIES
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drizzling in splattering streams to the ground, while the piano inside the main room had only brief intervals of rest, ever bursting into sound anew. At times I looked through the open door at the whirling, laughing couples, and again I would gaze out into the dark garden. Sometimes when a brighter streak of lightning flashed I could see near the garden wall at the end of the arcade white piles of human bones. Formerly there had been a small burying ground here and this very week they had dug up the skeletons from it in order to rebury them elsewhere. The ground was still torn up and the graves were open.

However, I was able to remain at my table only a little while each time. Often I would arise and approach for a moment the wide open door of the main saloon to have a closer look at the dancers. Each time I was attracted by a lovely girl of about eighteen years of age. Of slender figure, of full warm outlines, with loose black hair, cut just to the neck, an oval, smooth face, and bright eyes, she was indeed a beautiful young girl. Her eyes enchanted me. Liquid clear they were, as mysterious as the calm surface of water, yet so restless, recalling to you at once the words, “Sooner will a fire be satiated with wood and the sea with water than a beautiful-eyed maid will be satiated with men!”

She danced almost constantly. But well she observed that she had attracted my gaze. Whenever she danced past the door in which I stood she would