As I grew a little older I preferred to spend the whole day in the country, and then the place to make for was the so-called Grotto of Egeria. There was surely solitude, where it seemed as if no one ever came but ourselves; the outer world was left a thousand miles behind; the velvet undulations of the lonely valley were all a carpet of short thyme over which we rolled like the little kids of the goats that scampered away at our approach. And, best of all, there was the deep grotto with the broken statue and the shadowy crystal of its mysterious spring, its sides and vault one mantle of diamond—sprent maidenhair fern, its moist air and soft green light—a reflection from sun and grass outside—making it a place where the most light-hearted child could not but feel the solemnity of something very ancient and very spiritual. I used to linger there to dream of Egeria, the more than mortal, less than spirit maid who revealed the lore of Heaven to the Sabine Sage. I could picture her pale beauty, as she would sit by the spring and let Numa tell her of all the perplexities and difficulties of his rule, and very earnestly did I beg her to appear to me too, but she never came; how could she, when that had never really been her home? Then I would leap back to earth with a bound and join my brother and sisters and the little playmates who always came with us, in a breathless game which began with a mystic incantation I have never heard except in those days and in my own family. I should be glad if any one could enlighten me as to its origin, though I fancy it may have been an inheritance from some witch ancestress. Thus it ran: “Intery, Mintery, Cutery, Corn, Apple Seed and Apple Thorn, Wire, Brier, Limber, Lock, Seven Geese in a Flock. Sit and Sing, By a Spring! O, U, T—OUT!” For every word a head was counted round and round the hand-in-hand ring, and the unlucky one to whom fell the last one “Out” had to break away and fly, with all the rest in mad pursuit. Some distant point, generally the last ilex tree on the far side of the grove, had been fixed upon as sanctuary; if the fugitive could touch this before being caught, all was well; if not, he or she was at the orders of the others for any wild prank they might choose to command—three somersaults down a steep incline was a favourite one, while the victors looked on and cheered or derided, as the case might be.