paths overhung by pale-blossomed acacias, led to grassy lawns closed in by well-clipt hedges of box and rosemary, and broidered all over with little flowers,--blue, pink, and lilac,--mixt with the short thick grass. Long narrow terraces rising in green steps one above the other, set with fruit-trees in full bloom, made lines of lovely colour. Wild violets crept fragrantly about their roots, or hung in purple draperies from step to step. Under the shadowy dark-stemmed trees blood-red lilies burnt with a sultry glow. Here and there, in the blackness of some deeper gloom, pure star-like flowers, poised on tall slender stalks, gleamed white and ghostly. But everywhere about that garden, roses grew and bloomed, scattering their delicate petals upon the grass. Through the silence came a low murmuring of unseen waters; the thrush sang hidden amid thick leaves. The man scarce could tell if all the sweetness of that place were truth, or but woven magic. How this might be seemed nought to him, so he might pluck a living rose or two for Beauty. Yet he trod lightly, lest a spell should snap, and the dream melt away, leaving him alone in some drear bleak waste. [Illustration] But as he held the plucked flowers in his hand, a dread of some nameless unknown thing began to chill the man’s heart. Night seemed gathering round. The loud birds ceased their music; the merry-voiced fountains ran dully; and a shuddering dreadful sound, creeping up a-nigh him, turned all his blood to ice. The heavy dragging rustle as of some huge beast beneath the trees, became at length a grizzly shape, on the open green. The man was ’ware of great blackness and the grating of teeth. What more he could never tell, for betwixt the strange darkness and his mortal fear, standing there unarmed,--nought in his right hand but some stolen roses,--sight failed him. Then the Beast stayed still, and the roses dropt from the man’s grasp; and that Beast spake in a voice which was terrible to hearken to, so shaken was it by despair and rage. “Who, wretched man! art thou, that darest enter here and steal my roses? Meet were it did I slay thee there where thou standest!” But now the merchant, in whose breast there beat no woman’s heart, gat together all his strength and wit. So he turned and faced the Beast. “That were poorly done, fair sir,” said he, “to slay an unarmed man--one, too, less mighty than thyself. The child shall yet win sweeter flowers than these; take back thy roses and let me be gone.” And he cast down the flowers, and spurned them with his foot. But the Beast’s wrath on a sudden changed, as with a grievous voice he groaned, “For whom, then, art thou thus lost?” [Illustration: UPON THE STRANGE PRICKLY LEAVES, SOME ONE HAD CURIOUSLY CARVED BEAUTY’S NAME.... THE BEAST CAME NEAR, AND THE ROSES FELL FROM HIS GRASP. LEIGHTON, BROS.]