ve
scorned, being indeed on the friendliest terms with the porker in
question,--there was no handsome expression of regret on the discovery
of the real culprit. What Harold had felt was not so much the
imprisonment,--indeed he had very soon escaped by the window, with
assistance from his allies, and had only gone back in time for his
release,--as the Olympian habit. A word would have set all right; but of
course that word was never spoken.

Well! The Olympians are all past and gone. Somehow the sun does not seem
to shine so brightly as it used; the trackless meadows of old time have
shrunk and dwindled away to a few poor acres. A saddening doubt, a dull
suspicion, creeps over me. Et in Arcadia ego,--I certainly did once
inhabit Arcady. Can it be I too have become an Olympian?

A HOLIDAY.

The masterful wind was up and out, shouting and chasing, the lord of
the morning. Poplars swayed and tossed with a roaring swish; dead leaves
sprang aloft, and whirled into space; and all the clear-swept heaven
seemed to thrill with sound like a great harp.

It was one of the first awakenings of the year. The earth stretched
herself, smiling in her sleep; and everything leapt and pulsed to
the stir of the giant's movement. With us it was a whole holiday;
the occasion a birthday--it matters not whose. Some one of us had had
presents, and pretty conventional speeches, and had glowed with that
sense of heroism which is no less sweet that nothing has been done to
deserve it. But the holiday was for all, the rapture of awakening Nature
for all, the various outdoor joys of puddles and sun and hedge-breaking
for all. Colt-like I ran through the meadows, frisking happy heels in
the face of Nature laughing responsive. Above, the sky was bluest of the
blue; wide pools left by the winter's floods flashed the colour back,
true and brilliant; and the soft air thrilled with the germinating touch
that seemed to kindle something in my own small person as well as in the
rash primrose already lurking in sheltered haunts. Out into the brimming
sun-bathed world I sped, free of lessons, free of discipline and
correction, for one day at least. My legs ran of themselves, and though
I heard my name called faint and shrill behind, there was no stopping
for me. It was only Harold, I concluded, and his legs, though shorter
than mine, were good for a longer spurt than this. Then I heard it
called again, but this time more faintly, with a pathetic break