have you lost a horse? I see you carry the bridle
in your hand; and a very pretty one it is with that double row of
bright stones upon it. If the horse was as fine as the bridle, you are
much to be pitied for losing him."

"I have lost no horse," said Bellerophon, with a smile. "But I happen
to be seeking a very famous one, which, as wise people have informed
me, must be found hereabouts, if anywhere. Do you know whether the
winged horse Pegasus still haunts the Fountain of Pirene, as he used
to do in your forefathers' days?"

But then the country fellow laughed.

Some of you, my little friends, have probably heard that this Pegasus
was a snow-white steed, with beautiful silvery wings, who spent most
of his time on the summit of Mount Helicon. He was as wild, and as
swift, and as buoyant, in his flight through the air, as any eagle
that ever soared into the clouds. There was nothing else like him in
the world. He had no mate; he never had been backed or bridled by a
master; and, for many a long year, he led a solitary and a happy life.

Oh, how fine a thing it is to be a winged horse! Sleeping at night, as
he did, on a lofty mountain-top, and passing the greater part of the
day in the air, Pegasus seemed hardly to be a creature of the earth.
Whenever he was seen, up very high above people's heads, with the
sunshine on his silvery wings, you would have thought that he belonged
to the sky, and that, skimming a little too low, he had got astray
among our mists and vapors, and was seeking his way back again. It was
very pretty to behold him plunge into the fleecy bosom of a bright
cloud, and be lost in it, for a moment or two, and then break forth
from the other side. Or, in a sullen rain-storm, when there was a gray
pavement of clouds over the whole sky, it would sometimes happen that
the winged horse descended right through it, and the glad light of the
upper region would gleam after him. In another instant, it is true,
both Pegasus and the pleasant light would be gone away together. But
any one that was fortunate enough to see this wondrous spectacle felt
cheerful the whole day afterwards, and as much longer as the storm
lasted.

In the summer-time, and in the beautifullest of weather, Pegasus often
alighted on the solid earth, and, closing his silvery wings, would
gallop over hill and dale for pastime, as fleetly as the wind. Oftener
than in any other place, he had been seen near the Fountain of Pirene,
drinking