his place by her side, seized the reins,
and with a strong and practised hand curbed the mettle of his spirited
steeds.

She stood perfectly guileless and undoubting by his side, and wholly
at his mercy as the chariot rattled off; but, unknown to herself,
beneficent powers were shielding her with buckler and armor--her
childlike innocence, and that memory of her parents which her tempter
himself had revived in her mind, and which soon came back in vivid
strength.

Breathing deep with excitement, and filled with such rapture as a bird
may feel when it first soars from its narrow nest high up into the ether
she cried out again and again:

"Oh, this is delightful! this is splendid!" and then:

"How we rush through the air as if we were swallows! Faster, Lysias,
faster! No, no--that is too fast; wait a little that I may not fall! Oh,
I am not frightened; it is too delightful to cut through the air just
as a Nile boat cuts through the stream in a storm, and to feel it on my
face and neck."

Lysias was very close to her; when, at her desire, he urged his horses
to their utmost pace, and saw her sway, he involuntarily put out his
hand to hold her by the girdle; but Irene avoided his grasp, pressing
close against the side of the chariot next her, and every time he
touched her she drew her arm close up to her body, shrinking together
like the fragile leaf of a sensitive plant when it is touched by some
foreign object.

She now begged the Corinthian to allow her to hold the reins for a
little while, and he immediately acceded to her request, giving them
into her hand, though, stepping behind her, he carefully kept the ends
of them in his own. He could now see her shining hair, the graceful oval
of her head, and her white throat eagerly bent forward; an indescribable
longing came over him to press a kiss on her head; but he forbore, for
he remembered his friend's words that he would fulfil the part of a
guardian to these girls. He too would be a protector to her, aye and
more than that, he would care for her as a father might. Still, as often
as the chariot jolted over a stone, and he touched her to support her,
the suppressed wish revived, and once when her hair was blown quite
close to his lips he did indeed kiss it--but only as a friend or a
brother might. Still, she must have felt the breath from his lips, for
she turned round hastily, and gave him back the reins; then, pressing
her hand to her brow, she said in a quit