ountain an urn, through
whose perforated bottom the waters seemed eternally dripping.

"It is."

"Is it Hypermestra, the only one of all the fifty who had a woman's
heart, punished by her father for rescuing her husband from the awful
doom which her obedient sisters so cruelly inflicted on theirs."

"I believe it is one of the savage forty-nine, who were condemned by the
judges of the infernal regions to fill bottomless vessels with water,
through the unending days of eternity. She does not look much like a
bride of blood, does she, with that face of softly flowing contour, and
eye of patient anguish? I suppose filial obedience was considered a more
divine virtue than love, or the artist would not thus have beautified
and idealized one of the most revolting characters in mythology. I do
not like to dwell on this image. It represents woman in too detestable a
light. May we not be pardoned for want of implicit faith in her angelic
nature, when such examples are recorded of her perfidy and
heartlessness?"

"But she is a fabulous being, Ernest."

"Fables have their origin in truth, my Gabriella. Cannot you judge, by
the shadow, of the form that casts it? The mythology of Greece and Rome
shows what estimate was placed on human character at the time it was
written. The attributes of men and women were ascribed to gods and
goddesses, and by their virtues and crimes we may judge of the moral
tone of ancient society. Had there been no perfidious wives, the
daughters of Danaus had never been born of the poet's brain, and
embodied by the sculptor's hand. Had woman always been as true as she is
fair, Venus had never risen from the foam of imagination, or floated
down the tide of time in her dove-drawn car, giving to mankind an image
of beauty and frailty that is difficult for him to separate, so closely
are they intertwined."

"Yes," said I, reproachfully, "and had woman never been forsaken and
betrayed, we should never have heard of the fair, deserted Ariadne, or
the beautiful and avenging Medea. Had man never been false to his vows,
we should never have been told of the jealous anger of Juno, or the
poisoned garment prepared by the hapless Dejarnira. Ah! this is lovely!"

"Do you not recognize a similitude to the flower-girl of the library?
This is Flora herself, whose marble hands are dripping with flowers, and
whose lips, white and voiceless as they are, are wearing the sweetness
and freshness of eternal youth. Do you n