He tried, from a longing of the thirsty heart, to catch the little one's hand, but she hung with both upon Liana's left; presently, however, she skipped away, and plucked three iris-flowers,--which, like her, resembled butterflies,--and gave one to her mother, and two to Liana, with the words, "Give _him_ one too!" And Liana handed it to him, lifting her friendly face upon him as she did so with that holy maiden-look which is bright and attentive, but not searching, expressive of childlike sympathy without giving and demanding. Nevertheless, several times during the day did she let those holy eyes sink down; but what compelled her to it was, that on Zesara's rocky face, softened though it was by love, there rested a physiognomical right of the stronger: he seemed to look upon a shy soul with a hundred eyes, and his two true ones blazed as warmly, although quite as purely, as the sun's eye in the ether. The iris-flowers have this peculiarity, that one smells them, another not; only to these three beings in one did the cups open themselves equally wide, and they rejoiced long over this community of enjoyment. Helena ran forward and disappeared behind a low bush; she sat on a child's bench by a child's table, awaiting, with a smile, the grown people. The good old Prince had low moss-benches, little garden-chairs, little table- and pot-orangeries, and the like, placed everywhere, for the children, about the resting-places of their elders; for he loved to draw these refreshing open flowers of humanity near to his heart! "One wishes so often," said Liana, "to live in the patriarchal time, or in Arcadia, or in Otaheite; children are, indeed,--do you not believe so?--everywhere the same, and one has already in them what only the most remote time and the most remote region can insure." He indeed believed it, and gladly; but he kept asking himself, How can such an unstained Aphrodite be born out of the dead sea of a court, as pure dew and rain arise out of the briny water of the ocean? While speaking, she occasionally drew an uncommonly graceful--how shall I write it--_H'm!_ after her words, which, although a grammatical blunder at court, betrayed an unspeakable good nature; but I describe it, not in order that all my fair readers may let this attractive interjection be heard the very next Sunday.