“I was a glad and sunny child, And in the Fount of Life, Which, gushing from its hidden cave, In many a clear and sparkling wave, Each with sweet music rife, Wells in the morning sunlight up E’en to its stony brim, Dropping into each flowery cup That trembles on the rim; Each joyous chime and merry burst, As fresh and glad as ’twere the first, I bathed and quenched my healthy thirst Until my heart grew wild. And in the still and sultry hours, When nature drooped and was sad, Weary with thirst and heat, The tread of my light feet, Was cool and musical, As when at evening fall Drop by drop in lonely pools the summer showers, And the desert looked up and was glad. I strove with the maddened storm, I leapt the crag with the water-fall; For the blood in my veins was warm, And storms and streams and gleams and all The mighty creatures of the wild, In their wild, exulting play They welcomed me to their company, And they laughed to see a human child As strong and as glad as they.” [Illustration] CHAPTER XXII. A MEETING OF THE WATERS. At last the day of the nuptials came. Before dawn Ethne and Baithene started with the lectica and the cavalcade, and pausing once on the way, at last reached the great basilica of the Lateran. There the party from the Aventine met them, and Marius himself wondered at the fresh power and beauty in Ethne’s face, the radiant glow, the shining of the happy eyes. The sadness and the worn, weary look had indeed passed out of his own face, but still he felt as if the weight of the ages rested on him in comparison with her. “It is the old world wedding the new,” he said to her with a tender gravity. “I have been among the fountains,” she said; “we are going there together.” “_You_ are my fountain of youth,” he answered; “I need no other.” The Bishop and the priests met and received them at the porch, and they entered the great basilica; it was crowded. Bishop Leo himself was to give the benediction, and the rank of the betrothed, the romance of the foreign, far-off origin of Ethne and Baithene, the story of their sorrows and their joys, had gathered a great company together, touched with a sympathy unusually real and deep.