behind my time in this world by at
least twenty centuries, and ought to have lived in the jovial age of
fauns and satyrs, when groves were sacred for other reasons than the
high price of wood,--when gods and goddesses were abundant as
blackberries, and at the beck and call of every miserable wretch who
chose to propitiate them by offering a flask of wine, a bunch of
turnips, a litter of puppies, or a basket of olives. Hesiod and Homer
understood human nature infinitely better than Paul and Luther."

"Salome, you are growing shockingly irreverent and wicked."

"No, madam,--begging your pardon. I am only desperately honest in
wishing that my salvation and future felicity could be secured beyond
all peradventure, by a sacrifice of oatcakes, or white doves, or black
cats, instead of a drab-colored life of prayer, penance, purity, and
patience. I don't deny that I would rather spend my days in watching
the gorgeous pageant of the_ Panathenaea_, or chanting dithyrambics to
insure a fine vintage, or even offering a _Taigheirm_, than in running
neck and neck with Lucifer for the kingdom of heaven. I love kids, and
fawns, and lambs, as well as Landseer; but I should not long hesitate,
had I the choice, between flaying their tender flesh in sacrifice and
mortifying my own as a devout life requires."

"But what would have become of your poor soul if you had lived in
Pagan times?"

"What will become of it under present circumstances, I should be
exceedingly glad to know. 'The heathen are a law unto themselves,' and
I sometimes wish I had been born a Fejee belle, who lived, was
tastefully tattooed, and died without having even dreamed of
missionaries,--those officious martyrs who hope to wear a whole
constellation on their foreheads as a reward for having been eaten by
cannibals, to whom they expounded the unpalatable doctrine that,
'this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
loved darkness rather than light.' Moreover, I confess--"

"That is quite sufficient. I have already heard more than I relish of
such silly and sacrilegious chat. At least, you might have more
prudence and discretion than to hold forth so disgracefully in the
hearing of your little brother."

Miss Jane's cheek flushed, and her feeble voice faltered.

"He has fallen fast asleep over the bean-pods; and, even if he
had not, how much of the conversation do you imagine he would
comprehend? His sole knowledge of Grecian theogony con