ames, for the busy life
of the market? Truly, the bread of exile is not less distasteful to my
palate than to yours, but, in the society afforded by this house, it
loses some of its bitterness, and when the dear melodies of Hellas, so
perfectly sung, fall on my ear, my native land rises before me as in a
vision, I see its pine and olive groves, its cold, emerald green rivers,
its blue sea, the shimmer of its towns, its snowy mountain-tops and
marble temples, and a half-sweet, half-bitter tear steals down my cheek
as the music ceases, and I awake to remember that I am in Egypt, in this
monotonous, hot, eccentric country, which, the gods be praised, I am
soon about to quit. But, Aristomachus, would you then avoid the few
Oases in the desert, because you must afterwards return to its sands
and drought? Would you fly from one happy hour, because days of sadness
await you later? But stop, here we are! Show a cheerful countenance, my
friend, for it becomes us not to enter the temple of the Charites with
sad hearts."--[The goddesses of grace and beauty, better known by their
Roman name of "Graces."]

As Phanes uttered these words, they landed at the garden wall, washed
by the Nile. The Athenian bounded lightly from the boat, the Spartan
following with a heavier, firmer tread. Aristomachus had a wooden
leg, but his step was so firm, even when compared with that of the
light-footed Phanes, that it might have been thought to be his own limb.

The garden of Rhodopis was as full of sound, and scent and blossom as
a night in fairy-land. It was one labyrinth of acanthus shrubs,
yellow mimosa, the snowy gelder-rose, jasmine and lilac, red roses and
laburnums, overshadowed by tall palm-trees, acacias and balsam trees.
Large bats hovered softly on their delicate wings over the whole, and
sounds of mirth and song echoed from the river.

This garden had been laid out by an Egyptian, and the builders of
the Pyramids had already been celebrated for ages for their skill in
horticulture. They well understood how to mark out neat flower-beds,
plant groups of trees and shrubs in regular order, water the whole
by aqueducts and fountains, arrange arbors and summerhouses, and even
inclose the walks with artistically clipped hedges, and breed goldfish
in stone basins.

At the garden gate Phanes stopped, looked around him carefully and
listened; then shaking his head, "I do not understand what this can
mean," he said. "I hear no voices, there is