ong valley below us; the fresh west wind fluttered the oakleaves above;
and the low voice of the water, coaxing or scolding its way over bare
roots or mossy stones, was just audible.

"Doctor," said I, "this spring, with the oak hanging over it, is, I
suppose, your Fountain of Bandusia. You remember what Horace says of
his spring, which yielded such cool refreshment when the dog-star had
set the day on fire. What a fine picture he gives us of this charming
feature of his little farm!"

The Doctor's eye kindled. "I'm glad to see you like Horace; not merely
as a clever satirist and writer of amatory odes, but as a true lover of
Nature. How pleasant are his simple and beautiful descriptions of his
yellow, flowing Tiber, the herds and herdsmen, the harvesters, the grape
vintage, the varied aspects of his Sabine retreat in the fierce summer
heats, or when the snowy forehead of Soracte purpled in winter sunsets!
Scattered through his odes and the occasional poems which he addresses
to his city friends, you find these graceful and inimitable touches of
rural beauty, each a picture in itself."

"It is long since I have looked at my old school-day companions, the
classics," said Elder Staples; "but I remember Horace only as a light,
witty, careless epicurean, famous for his lyrics in praise of Falernian
wine and questionable women."

"Somewhat too much of that, doubtless," said the Doctor; "but to me
Horace is serious and profoundly suggestive, nevertheless. Had I laid
him aside on quitting college, as you did, I should perhaps have only
remembered such of his epicurean lyrics as recommended themselves to the
warns fancy of boyhood. Ah, Elder Staples, there was a time when the
Lyces and Glyceras of the poet were no fiction to us. They played
blindman's buff with us in the farmer's kitchen, sang with us in the
meeting-house, and romped and laughed with us at huskings and quilting-
parties. Grandmothers and sober spinsters as they now are, the change
in us is perhaps greater than in them."

"Too true," replied the Elder, the smile which had just played over his
pale face fading into something sadder than its habitual melancholy.
"The living companions of our youth, whom we daily meet, are more
strange to us than the dead in yonder graveyard. They alone remain
unchanged!"

"Speaking of Horace," continued the Doctor, in a voice slightly husky
with feeling, "he gives us glowing descriptions of his winter circles of
fr