What could we else, we promised each; and she, Like some wild creature, newly-caged, commenced A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused

By Florian; holding out her lily arms,

Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said:
"I knew you at the first: though you have grown,
You scarce have altered: I am sad and glad
To see you, Florian. I give thee to death,
My brother! it was duty spoke, not I.
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it.
Our mother, is she well?"

With that she kissed

His forehead, then, a moment after, clung
About him, and betwixt them blossomed up
From out a common vein of memory

Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth,
And far allusion, till the gracious dews
Began to glisten and to fall and while

They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice,
"I brought a message here from Lady Blanche."
Back started she, and turning round we saw
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood,
Melissa, with her hand upon the lock,

A rosy blonde, and in a college gown
That clad her like an April daffodilly,
(Her mother's color,) with her lips apart,
And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes,
As bottom agates seem to wave and float
In crystal currents of clear morning seas.

So stood that same fair creature at the door. Then Lady Psyche, "Ah - Melissa — you! You heard us?" and Melissa, "O pardon me! I heard, I could not help it, did not wish : But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, To give three gallant gentlemen to death." “I trust you,” said the other, " for we two Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: But yet your mother's jealous temperamentLet not your prudence, dearest, drowse, o. prove The Danaïd of a leaky vase, for fear

This whole foundation ruin, and I lose

My honor, these their lives." "Ah, fear me not," Replied Melissa, "no-I would not tell, “no

No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness,

No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things

That Sheba came to ask of Solomon."

"Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead The new light up, and culminate in peace,

For Solomon may come to Sheba yet."

Said Cyril, Madam, he the wisest man,

Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls

Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you

(Though madam you should answer, we would ask) Less welcome find among us, if you came

Among us, debtors for our lives to you,

Myself for something more." He said not what,
But "Thanks," she answered, "go: we have been too long
Together: keep your hoods about the face;

They do so that affect abstraction here.

Speak little; mix not with the rest; and hold
Your promise all, I trust, may yet be well."

We turned to go, but Cyril took the child,
And held her round the knees against his waist,
And blew the swollen cheek of a trumpeter,
While Psyche watched them, smiling, and the child
Pushed her flat hand against his face and laughed;
And thus our conference closed.

And then we strolled

For half the day through stately theatres

Benched crescent-wise.

The

In each we sat, we heard

grave Professor. On the lecture slate The circle rounded under female hands

With flawless demonstration: followed then

A classic lecture, rich in sentiment,
With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out
By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies

And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long,
That on the stretched forefinger of all Time
Sparkle forever: then we dipt in all

That treats of whatsoever is, the state,

The total chronicles of man, the mind,
The morals, something of the frame, the rock,
The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower,
Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest,

And whatsoever can be taught and known;
Till like three horses that have broken fence,
And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn,
We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke :
"Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we."

66

They hunt old trails," said Cyril, “very well; But when did woman ever yet invent?" "Ungracious!" answered Florian, "have you learnt No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talked The trash that made me sick, and almost sad?"

O trash," he said, "but with a kernel in it.
Should I not call her wise who made me wise?
And learnt? I learnt more from her in a flasn,
Than if my brainpan were an empty hull,
And every Muse tumbled a science in.

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls
And round these halls a thousand baby loves
Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts,
Whence follows many a vacant pang; but oh
With me, Sir, entered in the bigger boy,
The Head of all the golden-shafted firm
The long-limbed lad that had a Psyche too;
He cleft me through the stomacher; and now
What think you of it, Florian? do I chase
The substance or the shadow? will it hold?
I have no sorcerer's malison on me,
No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I
Flatter myself that always, everywhere,

I know the substance when I see it. Well,
Are castles shadows? Three of them? Is she
The sweet proprietress a shadow? If not,
Shall those three castles patch my tattered coat?
For dear are those three castles to my wants,
And dear is sister Psyche to my heart,

And two dear things are one of double worth,