"Sh--sh," she said glancing down the road where a whirl of dust was making towards them, in the center of which moved a band of bright young figures, "there they come now. Don't they look beautiful?" There were four young girls in front, their faces radiant with sun and air, and daisy wreaths in their gleaming hair; they had their arms around each other's waists and sang as they walked, with neither more accord nor discord than the birds about them. The voices were delicious in their youth and joy; one heard that they were singing not to produce a musical effect, but from the mere wish to sing. Behind them came a troop of young fellows, coats off, heads bare, racing all over the roadside, jostling each other and purposely provoking scrambles. The tallest one had a nimbus of bright curls crowning a glowing face, dimpled and sparkling as a child's. The girls glanced shyly at him under their lashes as he danced about now in front and now behind them, occasionally tossing them a flower, but mostly hustling his comrades about. Behind these came older people with three or four very little children riding on their backs. As the group came abreast of our couple they stopped to exchange a few words, then went on. When they had passed out of hearing the woman sat with a sphinx-like stare in her eyes, looking steadily at the spot where the bright head had nodded to her as it passed. "Like a wildflower on a stalk," she murmured softly, narrowing her eyes as if to fix the vision, "like a tall tiger-lily." Her companion's face darkened perceptibly. "What do you mean? What do you see?" he asked. "The vision of Youth and Beauty," she answered in the tone of a sleep-walker, "and the glory and triumph of it,--the immortality of it--its splendid indifference to its ruined temples, and all its humble worshipers. Do you know," turning suddenly to him with a sharp change in face and voice, "what I would be wicked enough to do, if I could?" He smiled tolerantly: "You, wicked? Dear one, you couldn't be wicked." "Oh, but I could! If there were any way to fix Davy's head forever, just as he passed us now,--forever, so that all the world might keep it and see it for all time, I would cut it off with this hand! Yes, I would." Her eyes glittered mercilessly. He shook his head smiling: "You wouldn't kill a bug, let alone Davy."