d
above their heads in the fiery chariot beside her sun-god. It could
not but be courage, active courage, superior to her previous tentative
steps--the verbal temerities she had supposed so dauntless. For now
she was in action, now she was being tried to match the preacher and
incarnation of the virtues of action!

Alvan shaped a comparison of her with Paris, his beloved of cities--the
symbolized goddess of the lightning brain that is quick to conceive,
eager to realize ideas, impassioned for her hero, but ever putting him
to proof, graceful beyond all rhyme, colloquial as never the Muse; light
in light hands, yet valiant unto death for a principle; and therefore
not light, anything but light in strong hands, very stedfast rather: and
oh! constantly entertaining.

The comparison had to be strained to fit the living lady's shape. Did he
think it, or a dash of something like it?

His mood was luxurious. He had found the fair and youthful original
woman of refinement and station desired by him. He had good reason
to wish to find her. Having won a name, standing on firm ground, with
promise of a great career, chief of what was then taken for a growing
party and is not yet a collapsed, nor will be, though the foot on it is
iron, his youth had flown under the tutelage of an extraordinary Mentor,
whom to call Athene robs the goddess of her personal repute for wisdom
in conduct, but whose head was wise, wise as it was now grey. Verily
she was original; and a grey original should seem remarkable above a
blooming blonde. If originality in woman were our prime request, the
grey should bear the palm. She has gone through the battle, retaining
the standard she carried into it, which is a victory. Alas, that grey,
so spirit-touching in Art, should be so wintry in reality!

The discovery of a feminine original breathing Spring, softer, warmer
than the ancient one, gold instead of snowcrested, and fully as intrepid
as devoted, was an immense joy to Alvan. He took it luxuriously because
he believed in his fortune, a kind of natal star, the common heritage of
the adventurous, that brought him his good things in time, in return
for energetic strivings in a higher direction apart from his natural
longings.

Fortune had delayed, he had wintered long. All the sweeter was the
breath of the young Spring. That exquisite new sweetness robed Clotilde
in the attributes of the person dreamed of for his mate; and deductively
assuming her to po