and it is the same with the misdirected way in which we govern our modern nations. If, instead of rushing to cities, and thus begetting what may be called geographical tumors, our rustics and wearied toilers stayed in the open country, then would our civilization become less restless, and more akin to the envied calm of Hellenic life. Food would be more plentiful, minds would be more at peace, bodies would be more healthy, and the world happier. But we will not do this;—fired by ambition, by desire for gold, by longings for luxury, we crowd together in noisy multitudes, and turn away from the calm serenity of Nature, who would take us to her breast and make us happy, even as she did those wiser children of old. Nature sent her herald, Wordsworth, to proclaim this truth, but alas! he piped in vain; and his songs of purity were drowned in the jingle of gold and the shouts of ambition. These were Maurice’s thoughts as he clambered up the mountain-path; and so rapt was he in his dreamings of Nature-worship, that, all unconsciously, he emerged into the glade near the western pass. It was encircled by ilex, tamarisk, beech, and elm, woven together as in brotherhood by straggling creepers, festooned gracefully from bough to bough, from branch to branch; and in the centre, amid the flowing grass, was placed a small marble altar, on a low flight of steps. In front the trees had been cut down, and there was a glimpse of the white houses in the valley, the waving red line of the grand staircase; and, high above, the bizzarre colors of the volcanic rocks, fringed by a dark green belt of forest, from which luxuriance the arid peaks shot up into the blue sky like white marble cones. But not at valley, nor forest, nor aerial peaks looked Maurice, for his eyes were fixed on Helena, who, robed in her favorite white, crowned with a wreath of roses, stood by the altar with a mass of brilliant flowers thereon, looking like the nymph of the place. She flushed red with delight as Maurice drew near, and paused in her dainty task of arranging the blossoms with the air of some startled shy thing of the woodlands. Like stars her eyes, like sunshine her glinting hair, and as for her face, the roses in her wreath were scarce so delicate in hue. The lovely glade, the solemn, flower-piled altar, the beautiful priestess—it was not Melnos, it was not the nineteenth century, for this was Arcadia; and in this bird-haunted dell was Flora discovered, weaving flowers for future summer’s adornment. “Are you Nymph, Dryad, or Oread?” he asked, pausing with one foot on the lowest step. “No; I am Chloris, the goddess of flowers,” she answered, entering into the spirit of his jesting speech. “Give me, then, O goddess, of your treasures!”