Olympia hurried from the court to her father's bedside. It was the first call to her of painful duty, a great epoch in every life! Suddenly from the midst of her bright–hued dream–life, her "Muses' haunts," and gay poetical imaginings, she was called to face some of the sternest realities, that post themselves like sentinels inevitable in the smoothest path of mortal existence. Suffering to be ended only by dissolution,—the mysterious departure of the loved one for that dim uncertain cloudland, the existence and nature of which have hardly hitherto been realised, but which henceforward will be invested with all the interest attaching to the home of those who have been our home–mates,—the newness of that solitude that first teaches the startled heart the meaning of those dreary words, never! never more!—these are the divining rods that first reveal the hidden wealth dormant beneath the flower–decked surface of many a gifted nature. [Sidenote: MORATA'S DEATH.] Olympia's loving watch by the bedside of her father was considerably prolonged, as he sank gradually to his rest; and finally closed his eyes tranquil in the assurance that the position which his Olympia's rare talents and acquirements had attained for her, would enable her to be the stay and protectress of her three young sisters and younger brother. But while this scene was passing in the humble home of the worn–out scholar, events of a very different sort were in progress in the palace home she had so recently left.