stival. Pleased with the little new garment which she herself had
woven for him and embroidered with a tiny tree with red apples, beneath
which stood a bright-plumaged duckling, she led him by the hand in the
necropolis to the empty tomb dedicated to his father.

It was a building the height of a man, constructed of red Cyprian
marble, on which, cast in bronze, shield, sword, and lance, as well as
a beautiful helmet, lay beside a sleeping lion. It was dedicated to
the memory of the brave hipparch whom he had been permitted to call his
father, and who had been burned beside the battlefield on which he had
found a hero's death.

Hermon now again beheld himself, with his mother, garlanding, anointing,
and twining with fresh fillets the mausoleum erected by his uncle
Archias to his brave brother. The species of every flower, the colour
of the fillets-nay, even the designs embroidered on his little holiday
robe--again returned to his mind, and, while these pleasant memories
hovered around him, he appealed to his mother in prayer.

She stood before him, young and beautiful, listening without reproach or
censure as he besought her forgiveness and confided to her his sins, and
how severely he was punished by Nemesis.

During this confession he felt as though he was kneeling before the
beloved dead, hiding his face in her lap, while she bent over him and
stroked his thick, black hair. True, he did not hear her speak; but when
he looked up again he could see, by the expression of her faithful blue
eyes, that his manly appearance surprised her, and that she rejoiced in
his return to her arms.

She listened compassionately to his laments, and when he paused
pressed his head to her bosom and gazed into his face with such joyous
confidence that his heart swelled, and he told himself that she could
not look at him thus unless she saw happiness in store for him.

Lastly, he began also to confide that he loved no woman on earth more
ardently than the very Daphne whom, when only a pretty little child, she
had carried in her arms, yet that he could not seek the wealthy heiress
because manly pride forbade this to the blind beggar.

Here the anguish of renunciation seized him with great violence, and
when he wished to appeal again to his mother his exhausted imagination
refused its service, and the vision would not appear.

Then he groped his way back to the bed, and, as he let his head sink
upon the pillows, he fancied that he woul