e adders of the wood. The natives are crafty and
remorseless; they never relax; they have no cheerfulness or mirth; their
very love is a furnace, and their sole ecstasy is revenge."

"No country like home to any of us," said Aristo; "yet here you are. Habit
would be a second nature if you were here long enough; your feelings would
become acclimated, and would find a new home. People get to like the
darkness of the extreme north in course of time. The painted Britons, the
Cimmerians, the Hyperboreans, are content never to see the sun at all,
which is your god. Here your own god reigns; why quarrel with him?"

"The sun of Greece is light," answered Callista; "the sun of Africa is
fire. I am no fire-worshipper."

"I suspect even Styx and Phlegethon are tolerable, at length," said her
brother, "if Phlegethon and Styx there be, as the poets tell us."

"The cold, foggy Styx is the north," said Callista, "and the south is the
scorching, blasting Phlegethon, and Greece, clear, sweet, and sunny, is
the Elysian fields." And she continued her improvisations:--

"Where are the islands of the blest?
They stud the AEgean sea;
And where the deep Elysian rest?
It haunts the vale where Peneus strong
Pours his incessant stream along,
While craggy ridge and mountain bare
Cut keenly through the liquid air,
And, in their own pure tints arrayed,
Scorn earth's green robes which change and fade,
And stand in beauty undecayed,
Guards of the bold and free."

"A lower flight, if you please, just now," said Aristo, interrupting her.
"I do really wish a serious word with you about Agellius. He's a fellow I
can't help liking, in spite of his misanthropy. Let me plead his cause.
Like him or not yourself, still he has a full purse; and you will do a
service to yourself and to the gods of Greece, and to him too, if you will
smile on him. Smile on him at least for a time; we will go to Carthage
when you are tired. His looks have very little in them of a Christian
left; you may blow it away with your breath."

"One might do worse than be a Christian," she answered slowly, "if all is
true that I have heard of them."

Aristo started up in irritation. "By all the gods of Olympus," he said,
"this is intolerable! If a man wants a tormentor, I commend him to a girl
like you. What has ailed thee some time past, you silly child? What have I
done to you that you