r we ascended Mount
Olympus and pictured ourselves amongst the gods of the ancient
mythology. We admired its richly-wooded slopes, where the endless
mulberry trees put forth their spreading foliage, and visited the
Monastery of St. Dionysius, which lies in that wonderful Olympian
amphitheatre--one of the grandest scenes in nature.

"All Athens opened its doors to us. They could not greet too warmly or
_fete_ too highly my mother's beauty and grace, my father's rare gifts
of heart and mind.

"But our happiest hours were spent alone. Together we studied the
wonders of the capital, and grew familiar with the Byzantine churches.
We passed days upon lovely AEgina where blow the purest of Heaven's pure
winds. We stood almost in awe before the wonderful ruins of the Doric
Temple of Zeus, AEgina's glory, whose columns have stood the test of
2,500 years. What can be lovelier than the view from the summit of that
rugged hill crowned by its imperishable monument? I remember as though
it were yesterday my first glimpse of Helicon and Parnassus, as we
sailed through the Gulf of Corinth; the walk through the olive-groves of
the Sacred Plain, where, turn which way you will, the eye rests on
historic ground. In the fair city we thought of Paul as he preached to
the Athenians under the shadow of the Parthenon. We haunted the
Acropolis with its barren rocks and fragments of past glories. From the
charmed heights we gazed upon the sapphire sea ever flashing in
brilliant sunshine. In the distance, faint and hazy and dreamlike, were
ever the sleeping mountains, AEgina and Argolis protecting the magic
ranges. Sometimes we penetrated too far inland, and more than once my
father's adventurous spirit had nearly brought us within the grasp of
the lawless, a condition of things that would have been the death of my
mother, and for which he would never have forgiven himself.

"But all the pleasure of our wanderings never equalled the charm of our
home-coming. There was our life and our delight. There we were truly
happy. Looking back, I see that it was an ideal existence: a condition
Heaven never permits to remain too long unbroken, or we might forget
that this is not our abiding city.

"My father filled his leisure moments by cultivating vineyards, which in
those days were very successful, and in the form of wine returned rich
revenues. We lived in a rainbow atmosphere, and, if you know
Provence--as doubtless you do--you will also know that th