Praxinoë, a buxom merry-hearted lass, who was so healthy, she never had but one dream she remembered in the whole course of her life; and that was of being at a vintage festival, where she pelted the young men with clusters of grapes, till the wine ran down their chins and made her wake with laughing. Certainly, she would have chosen quite another sort of mate, than Hermotimus with his soft voice and dreamy eyes. But it was the belief in those days, and it has kept its ground pretty well ever since, that women have no right to an opinion of their own. So the parents arranged the affair between them, and the passive young couple were married. Praxinoë was energetic and ambitious. She prided herself on the excellent cheeses she made, and the quantity of grapes she dried for the market. She was always talking of these, and Hermotimus tried to listen patiently, though she unconsciously tormented him to a greater degree than ever his thrifty father had done. Sometimes he even praised her industry, and smiled, in his absent sort of way; for he had a kind of pleasure in the company of his pretty young bride, as he had in the presence of a lively twittering bird. Had a modern caricaturist made a picture of their wedded life, he would have painted it as the marriage of a solemn young owl with a chattering wren. Hermotimus was often bewildered by her volubility, and her incessant activity sometimes made him feel weary, as if he had himself been hard at work. He loved to sit for hours in silent thought, meditating on the nature of the soul; revolving in his mind whether the gods ever _did_ unite themselves with mortals; and whether those philosophers had spoken truly, who had affirmed that there was something divine within the body, which would lay aside its temporary garment of flesh, resume its native wings, and return to a celestial home, to dwell among immortals. While his thoughts were plunged in such profound meditations, it not unfrequently happened that Praxinoë came to inquire whether he remembered how many cheeses she had sent to market, or how many bushels of grapes were in readiness; and if he forgot the number she had told him, as he generally did, her cheerful temper became over-clouded with consciousness that the energy and industry, on which she prided herself, were altogether unappreciated. It was a hard disappointment for her to bear; for she loved luxury, and was born to sun herself in the pleasures of this world. Hermotimus would have pitied her if he could; but he never was in that region where she lived, and he did not know what people enjoyed or suffered there. Praxinoë had as little idea of the worlds through which _he_ wandered; and the glimpses she obtained from his occasional remarks were by no means attractive to her. She had much less desire for celestial wings, than she had for fine woolens and glossy silks; and the shadow-land of disembodied souls presented to her mind no pleasant pictures of comfortable housekeeping.