"Love is only too ready to believe the worst. When Procris heard the tale she fell down fainting with sudden grief. Then coming to, she bemoaned her wretched fate, and wept for my faithlessness. She believed that this Aura was a maiden and a rival. Yet, hoping she might be deceived, she would not pass sentence unless she beheld my treachery with her own eyes. "Next morning, at sunrise, I went out as usual to the woods, and being successful in the chase, lay down to rest myself, murmuring, 'Come to me, sweetest Aura.' Methought I heard a faint far-distant moan, but I heeded not and said again, 'Come, Aura, come!' A rustling of leaves startled me, and, thinking it was a wild beast, I let fly my javelin. "Alas! it was Procris. Crying, 'Ah, wretched me!' she received the dart in her breast. I ran to the sound of her voice. To my distraction I found her dying, her garments stained with blood, and drawing her own gift, that too-sure javelin, out of her wound. I lifted up her body, dearer to me than my own, in my guilty arms, and bound up the cruel wounds with strips torn from my garments; and I tried vainly to stanch the blood, begging her not to die and leave me desolate. "With gasping breath and broken utterance she whispered in my ear: 'I beseech thee, by the gods above, and by our marriage vows, and by my love even now enduring though I die, not to let that light-of-love, Aura, possess the heart that once was mine!' Then, at last, I saw the mistake of the name, and that her fears were about a shadow. I reassured her. But what availed it? She was sinking, and her little strength faded away with her life-blood. So long as she could look at anything, she gazed on me, and breathed out with a smile her unhappy life. But I like to fancy she died free from care, and with a look of content. "I still cherish her memory. No mortal maid has since possessed my heart. So have I grown old in the service of Diana, looking to the day which cannot now be long distant when we can meet and renew our love in the Elysian fields." ECHO AND NARCISSUS BY THOMAS BULFINCH Echo was a beautiful nymph, fond of the woods and hills, where she devoted herself to woodland sports. She was a favorite of Diana, and attended her in the chase. But Echo had one failing; she was fond of talking, and whether in chat or argument, would have the last word. One day Juno was seeking her husband, who, she had reason to fear, was amusing himself among the nymphs. Echo by her talk contrived to detain the goddess till the nymphs made their escape. When Juno discovered it, she passed sentence upon Echo in these words: "You shall forfeit the use of that tongue with which you have cheated me, except for that one purpose you are so fond of--_reply_. You shall still have the last word, but no power to speak first."