"How, my Leo? Why, easily enough. For many nights I have listened to
the wise discourses of our Holly here, at least he thinks them wise who
still has so much to learn, and pored over his crooked maps, comparing
them with those that are written in my memory, who of late have had
no time for the study of such little matters. Also I have weighed and
pondered your reports of the races of this world; their various follies,
their futile struggling for wealth and small supremacies, and I have
determined that it would be wise and kind to weld them to one whole,
setting ourselves at the head of them to direct their destinies, and
cause wars, sickness, and poverty to cease, so that these creatures of
a little day (ephemeridae was the word she used) may live happy from the
cradle to the grave.

"Now, were it not because of thy strange shrinking from bloodshed,
however politic and needful--for my Leo, as yet thou art no true
philosopher--this were quickly done, since I can command a weapon which
would crush their armouries and whelm their navies in the deep; yes, I,
whom even the lightnings and Nature's elemental powers must obey. But
thou shrinkest from the sight of death, and thou believest that Heaven
would be displeased because I make myself--or am chosen--the instrument
of Heaven. Well, so let it be, for thy will is mine, and therefore we
will tread a gentler path."

"And how wilt thou persuade the kings of the earth to place their crowns
upon thy head?" I asked, astonished.

"By causing their peoples to offer them to us," she answered suavely.
"Oh! Holly, Holly, how narrow is thy mind, how strained the quality of
thine imagination! Set its poor gates ajar, I pray, and bethink thee.