ut, Pan, how can any one think thoughts without something to think them
with? I never thought of anything that I have not seen, or touched, or
smelt, or tasted, or heard about from some one else. If I think with
nothing, and about nothing, is that thinking, do you think?"

"I think," answered Pan evasively, "that you are a sensationalist, a
materialist, a sceptic, a revolutionist; and if you had not sought the
assistance of a god, I should have said not much better than an atheist. I
also think it is time I thought about some physic for you instead of
metaphysics, which are bad for my head, and for your soul." Saying this,
Pan, with rough tenderness, deposited the almost fainting maiden upon a
couch of fern, and, having supported her head with a bundle of herbs,
leaned his own upon his hand, and reflected with all his might. The
declining sun was now nearly opposite the cavern's mouth, and his rays,
straggling through the creepers that wove their intricacies over the
entrance, chequered with lustrous patches the forms of the dying girl and
the meditating god. Ever and anon, a petal would drop from the flower; this
was always succeeded by a shuddering tremor throughout Iridion's frame and
a more forlorn expression on her pallid countenance: while Pan's jovial
features assumed an expression of deeper concern as he pressed his knotty
hand more resolutely against his shaggy forehead, and wrung his dexter horn
with a more determined grasp, as though he had caught a burrowing idea by
the tail.

"Aha!" he suddenly exclaimed, "I have it!"

"What have you, Pan?" faintly lisped the expiring Iridion.

Instead of replying, Pan grasped a wand that leaned against the wall of his
grot, and with it touched the maiden and the flower. O strange
metamorphosis! Where the latter had been pining in its vase, a lovely girl,
the image of Iridion, lay along the ground with dishevelled hair, clammy
brow, and features slightly distorted by the last struggles of death. On
the ferny couch stood an earthen vase, from which rose a magnificent lily,
stately, with unfractured stem, and with no stain or wrinkle on its
numerous petals.

"Aha!" repeated Pan; "I think we are ready for him now." Then, having
lifted the inanimate body to the couch, and placed the vase, with its
contents, on the floor of his cavern, he stepped to the entrance, and
shading his eyes with his hand, seemed to gaze abroad in quest of some
anticipated visitor.

The boughs a