of girls in misty drapery, and masqued across the eyes, the
same indeed that had carried off Mark, appeared suddenly before the
princely group. They had discovered in the deepest dell of their native
mountain a deserted babe--the offspring doubtless of the loves of some
wandering god. They were become its nurses, and fed it upon sacred honey
and consecrated bread. Of immortal birth themselves, and untouched by
the passing years, the boy became, as he grew up, the plaything, and
finally the beloved of his beautiful friends. But the boy himself is
indifferent to their attractions, and careless or averse to their
caresses. He is often lost to them, and wanders in the mountain
fastnesses with the fawns and kids.

All this and more was told in action, in song, and recitative, upon the
palace lawns before this strange audience, themselves partly actors in
the pastoral drama. Rural dances, and games and sacrifices were
presented with delicately-conceived grouping and pictorial effect. Then
the main action of the drama developed itself. The most lovely of the
nymphs, the queen and leader of the rest, inspires a devoted passion in
the heart of the priest of Apollo, before whose altar they offer
sacrifice, and listen for guiding and response. She rejects his love
with cruel contempt, pining always for the coy and errant boy-god, who
thinks of nothing but the distant mountain summits and the divine
whispers of the rustling woods. The priest, insulted and enraged,
invokes the aid of his divinity, and a change comes over the gay and
magic scene. A terrible pestilence strikes down the inhabitants of these
sylvan lawns, and gloomy funerals, and the pathetic strains of dirges
take the place of dances and lively songs.

The terrified people throw themselves before the altar of the incensed
Apollo, and the god speaks again. His anger can be appeased only by the
sacrifice of the contemptuous nymph who has insulted his priest, or of
some one who is willing to perish in her place. Proclamation is made
across the sunny lawns, inviting a victim who will earn the wreath of
self-sacrifice and of immortal consciousness of a great deed, but there
is no response.

The fatal day draws on; the altar of sacrifice is prepared; but there
spreads a rumour among the crowd--fanned probably by hope--that at the
last moment a god will interfere. Some even speak of the wandering boy,
if he could only be found. Surely he--so removed from earthly and
selfis