was the Shepherd Lord, too, that you told me about, and the
Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, in a funny little old book that Father had;
by Hannah More, I think it was. And wasn't there a shepherd painter?"

"Of course! Giotto!" cried Hildegarde. "He was only ten years old when
Cimabue found him drawing a sheep on a smooth stone."

"It was in one of my school-readers," said Rose. "Only the teacher
called him Guy Otto, and I supposed it was a contraction of the two
names, for convenience in printing. Then," she added, after a moment,
"there was David, when he was 'ruddy, and of a beautiful countenance.'"

"And Apollo," cried Hildegarde, "when he kept the flocks of Admetus, you
know."

"I don't know!" said Rose. "I thought Apollo was the god of the sun."

"So he was!" replied Hildegarde. "But Jupiter was once angry with him,
and banished him from Olympus. His sun-chariot was sent round the sky as
usual, but empty; and he, poor dear, without his golden rays, came down
to earth, and hired himself as a shepherd to King Admetus of Thessaly.
All the other shepherds were very wild and savage, but Apollo played to
them on his lyre, and sang of all the beautiful things in the world,--of
spring, and the young grass, and the birds, and--oh! everything lovely.
So at last he made them gentle, like himself, and taught them to sing,
and play on the flute, and to love their life and the beautiful world
they lived in. And so shepherds became the happiest people in the
world, and the most skilful in playing and singing, and in shooting with
bow and arrows, which the god also taught them; till at last the gods
were jealous, and called Apollo back to Olympus. Isn't it a pretty
story? I read it in 'Telemaque,' at school last winter."

"Lovely!" said Rose. "Yes, I think I should like to be a shepherd." And
straightway she fell into a reverie, this foolish Rose, and fancied
herself wrapped in a plaid, lying in a broad meadow, spread with heather
as with a mantle, and here and there gray rocks, and sheep moving slowly
about nibbling the heather.

And as Hildegarde watched her pure sweet face, and saw it soften into
dreamy languor and then kindle again with some bright thought, another
poem of the Ettrick Shepherd came to her mind, and she repeated the
opening lines, half to herself:--

"Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen;
But it wasna to meet Duneira's men,
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
For Kilmeny wa