Sisters. It was only on the
sly that she was an omnivorous reader of dramatic and lyric poetry.
She watched with keen interest the earliest developments of the prose
romance in southern Europe; and after the publication of "Clarissa
Harlowe" she spent practically all her time in reading novels. It was
not until the Spring of the year 1863 that an entirely new element
forced itself into her peaceful life. Zeus fell in love with her.

To us, for whom so quickly "time doth transfix the flourish set on
youth," there is something strange, even a trifle ludicrous, in the
thought that Zeus, after all these years, is still at the beck and call
of his passions. And it seems anyhow lamentable that he has not yet
gained self-confidence enough to appear in his own person to the lady
of his choice, and is still at pains to transform himself into whatever
object he deems likeliest to please her. To Clio, suddenly from Olympus,
he flashed down in the semblance of Kinglake's "Invasion of the Crimea"
(four vols., large 8vo, half-calf). She saw through his disguise
immediately, and, with great courage and independence, bade him begone.
Rebuffed, he was not deflected. Indeed it would seem that Clio's high
spirit did but sharpen his desire. Hardly a day passed but he appeared
in what he hoped would be the irresistible form--a recently discovered
fragment of Polybius, an advance copy of the forthcoming issue of "The
Historical Review," the note-book of Professor Carl Voertschlaffen...
One day, all-prying Hermes told him of Clio's secret addiction to
novel-reading. Thenceforth, year in, year out, it was in the form of
fiction that Zeus wooed her. The sole result was that she grew sick of
the sight of novels, and found a perverse pleasure in reading history.
These dry details of what had actually happened were a relief, she told
herself, from all that make-believe.

One Sunday afternoon--the day before that very Monday on which this
narrative opens--it occurred to her how fine a thing history might be if
the historian had the novelist's privileges. Suppose he could be present
at every scene which he was going to describe, a presence invisible and
inevitable, and equipped with power to see into the breasts of all the
persons whose actions he set himself to watch...

While the Muse was thus musing, Zeus (disguised as Miss Annie S. Swan's
latest work) paid his usual visit. She let her eyes rest on him. Hither
and thither she divided her swift