bark; her hair changed to leaves; her arms to branches; her feet, a moment before so agile, became rooted to the ground. Yet Phœbus still loved. He felt beneath the bark of the tree the heart beat of the nymph he adored; he covered the senseless tree with his despairing kisses; and then, when he knew that the nymph was lost to him for ever, he cried: “If thou canst not be my wife, thou shalt be at least Apollo’s sacred tree. Laurel, thou shalt for ever wreathe my hair, my lyre, my quiver. Thou shalt crown Rome’s heroes; thy sacred branches shall shelter and guard the palace of her Cæsars; and as the god, thy lover, shines with the lustre of eternal youth, so, too, shalt thou preserve thy beauty and freshness to the end of time.”’ ‘Poor Daphne,’ sighed Lina. ‘Poor Apollo, I think,’ said Gerald; ‘he was the loser. What do you think of my story, Mistress Daphne?’ ‘I rather like my namesake,’ answered Daphne deliberately. ‘She was thorough. When she pretended to mean a thing she really did mean it. There is a virtue in sincerity.’ ‘And obstinacy is a vice,’ said Gerald. ‘I consider the river-god’s daughter a pig-headed young person, whose natural coldness of heart predisposed her to transformation into a vegetable. Apollo made too much of her.’ CHAPTER XIX. ‘I DEME THAT HIRE HERTE WAS FUL OF WO.’ All the servants at South Hill were old servants. Sir Vernon was a stern and an exacting master, but he only asked fair change for his shilling. He did not expect to reap where he had not sown, nor to gather where he had not strewed. His household was carried on upon a large and liberal scale, and the servants had privileges which they would hardly have enjoyed elsewhere. Therefore, with the disinterested fidelity of their profession, and of the human race generally, they stayed with him, growing old and gray in his service. Among these faithful followers was one who made a stronger point of her fidelity than any of the others, and affected a certain superiority to all the rest. This was Mowser, Madoline’s own maid, who had been maid to Lady Lawford until her death, and who, on that melancholy event, had taken upon herself the office of nurse to the orphan girl. That she was faithful to Madoline, and strongly attached to Madoline, there could be no doubt; but it was rather hard upon the outstanding balance of humanity that she could consider herself privileged by reason of this attachment to be as disagreeable as she pleased to everyone else.