nd laid waste
Aetion's city, he did choose as his especial prize,
And, loving sacred music well, made it his exercise."

"That is superb! You must find me the place to-morrow. But Achilles
playing on the harp? I am afraid he will suffer in Will Murray's
estimation."

"Hush! don't breathe it! Will doesn't know it yet,--perhaps may never
find it out. Do you know, Miss Eloise, as you go flitting along in that
misty dress, with the little scarf dropping from your hair, that you are
like the very soul of a white cloud fallen from above and trailing along
beside me?"

"I? with my dark skin?" said Eloise, before she thought.

"Yes, you, Egypt! White, because there combine all colors that are; and
in you--pardon me--there is a universal wealth of tint, be it carnation,
sea-green, black, or cream, so harmonized that one looks a hundred times
before finding it all. You recollect how a great painter produces his
effect of white,--of white sunlight on a stem? He lays the solar
spectrum there, the seven colors of light,--and their union in the
beholder's eye makes the dash of sunshine, the white lustre. Do you
know, in fact, what you remind me of?"

"No,--how should I?--Hark! what was that?"

It was the pealing of a bell, the far and faint pulsation of that bell
she had once before heard, as it rang out the changes of the sea, now
above and now below the flashing, falling foam-crests.

"It is the tide-bell," said Mr. St. George, stiffly; and, with the word,
the previous midnight rose as if by incantation, and she kept her eyes
on the ground. Yet, as they walked, it seemed to Eloise that her
quickened senses detected a hidden rustle and murmur, as if the distant
morasses, the neighboring thickets, were alive. She seemed to be aware
of soft and stealthy soundless foot-falls; shadowy forms, she would have
said, were gliding around them in the night. Cold terror made her heart
stand still. Suddenly all these fears condensed into shape,--two flaming
eyeballs glared in the copse,--a shock, a flash, a smell of powder, just
as she had seized Mr. St. George's arm and snatched him back. Then the
boughs crashed, and the dark shade went leaping away. Terror died in
Eloise's heart. Intrepid rage possessed her. She sprang forward, still
holding him back with the continued gesture of the light hand on his
arm, and gazed over the bushes, the very incarnation of splendid
fearlessness and defiance. Mr. St. George laughed.

"Is there