tingales sang in the plane and poplar groves at home; how the white
glory of the Parthenon smiled down on violet-crowned Athens, where
their wives and children thronged the temples, in sacrificial rites to
insure their safety.

In crevices of the perpendicular walls lush creepers tapestried the
gray stone, and far down, out of the mould of the subterranean dungeon,
sprang slim lemon trees snowed over with fragrant bloom, clumps of
oleander waving banners of vivid rose, and golden-green pomegranate
bushes, where scarlet flakes glowed like the wings of tropical birds.

"Well, is the game worth the candle? After voyaging thousands of miles,
do you feel repaid; or down there, in the heart of the desolation, do
you see only the grinning mask of jeering disappointment, which
generally follows American realists into the dusty haunts of Old World
idealism?"

As she spoke, Alma Cutting stepped back under the cool canopy of a
spreading fig-tree, and fanned herself with a tuft of papyrus leaves.
She was a tall, handsome woman, pronouncedly brunette in type, with
large black eyes whose customary indolent indifference of expression
did not entirely veil the fires "banked" under the velvet iris; and a
square, firm mouth, around whose full crimson lips lurked a certain
haughtiness, that despite the curb of good breeding, bordered at times
closely upon insolence. Thirty years had tripped over this dark head,
where the hair, innocent of crimp or curl, hung in a straight jet
fringe low on her wide forehead; and though no lines marred the smooth,
health-tinted skin, she was perceptibly "sun burnt by the glare of
life," and the dew of youth had vanished before the vampire lips of
ennui.

"Disappointed? Certainly not; and I were exacting and unreasonable
indeed, if I did not feel abundantly repaid. Alma, since the days when
I pored over Thucydides, Plutarch, Rollin and Grote, this spot has
beckoned to my imagination with all the uplifted hands of the nine
thousand captives; and the longing of years is to-day completely
gratified."

"Am I unusually stupid, or are you rapt, beyond the realm of reason and
mid-day common sense? Pray what is the fascination? It is neither so
vast, nor so picturesque as the Colosseum. There, one expects to hear
the roar of the beasts springing on their human prey; the ring of steel
on steel, when the gladiators have bowed like dancing-masters to the
bloated old bald-headed Neros and Vespasians; and you fanc