!"

And so ending, she took the wreath of fragrant gale from her own head,
and stooping from the car, placed it on the head of Amyas Leigh, who
made answer--

"There is no place like home, my fair mistress and no scent to my taste
like this old home-scent in all the spice-islands that I ever sailed
by!"

"Her song was not so bad," said Sir Richard to Lady Bath--"but how came
she to hear Plymouth bells at Tamar-head, full fifty miles away? That's
too much of a poet's license, is it not?"

"The river-nymphs, as daughters of Oceanus, and thus of immortal
parentage, are bound to possess organs of more than mortal keenness;
but, as you say, the song was not so bad--erudite, as well as
prettily conceived--and, saving for a certain rustical simplicity and
monosyllabic baldness, smacks rather of the forests of Castaly than
those of Torridge."

So spake my Lady Bath; whom Sir Richard wisely answered not; for she was
a terribly learned member of the college of critics, and disputed even
with Sidney's sister the chieftaincy of the Euphuists; so Sir Richard
answered not, but answer was made for him.

"Since the whole choir of Muses, madam, have migrated to the Court of
Whitehall, no wonder if some dews of Parnassus should fertilize at times
even our Devon moors."

The speaker was a tall and slim young man, some five-and-twenty years
old, of so rare and delicate a beauty, that it seemed that some Greek
statue, or rather one of those pensive and pious knights whom the old
German artists took delight to paint, had condescended to tread awhile
this work-day earth in living flesh and blood. The forehead was very
lofty and smooth, the eyebrows thin and greatly arched (the envious
gallants whispered that something at least of their curve was due to
art, as was also the exceeding smoothness of those delicate cheeks).
The face was somewhat long and thin; the nose aquiline; and the languid
mouth showed, perhaps, too much of the ivory upper teeth; but the
most striking point of the speaker's appearance was the extraordinary
brilliancy of his complexion, which shamed with its whiteness that of
all fair ladies round, save where open on each cheek a bright red spot
gave warning, as did the long thin neck and the taper hands, of sad
possibilities, perhaps not far off; possibilities which all saw with an
inward sigh, except she whose doting glances, as well as her resemblance
to the fair youth, proclaimed her at once his mother, Mrs. Leig