looks till I could see him. It
would be a right pleasant destiny, when one begins to grow old and ugly,
to be transformed into wood, and carved as one would wish to appear
perpetually. And happier fate still, like Philemon and Baucis, to change
into living trees, and flourish for hundreds of years in youth and
vigor. There are willow-trees growing on the banks of the river that may
easily have been girls who wept themselves into trees, because their
hair would soon be gray, and they have exchanged it for tresses of
green. Near those willow-trees the princely stranger who has lately
occupied the castle will next week give a boating _fete_, to which I
am invited; I suppose you also, courteous Sir, will be present, a
knight-errant for distressed damsels?

"HAGUNA."

Anthrops kissed the little old man on the dagger's hilt again and again,
and made two equally firm, but entirely disconnected resolutions,
simultaneously: namely, never to give his nephew the intended present,
and by all means to be at the boat-_fete_ the following week.

The day of the _fete_ arrived,--a clear, lovely day in early June. The
host had provided for the accommodation of his guests a number of boats
of different sizes, holding two, three, or a dozen people, according to
the fancy of the voyagers. Anthrops, descending the flight of steps that
led to the river, came unexpectedly upon his old friend the philosopher,
apparently emerging from the side of the hill.

"I expected you here," said he; "are you going on the river?"

Anthrops replied in the affirmative.

"Haguna is here, and I have come to exact a promise that you will not
sail with her. You will repent it, if you do."

"Better than starvation is a feast and repentance," cried the young man,
gayly. "What harm is there in the girl? Though, to be sure, I had no
particular intention of sailing with her."

"It would be of no use to warn you explicitly," said his friend; "you
would not believe me. But you must not go."

"Nay, good father," returned the youth, a little vexed,--"it is
altogether too unreasonable to expect me to obey like a child; give me
one good reason why I should avoid her as if she had the plague, and I
promise to be guided by you."

"All women have some plague-spot," said the philosopher, sententiously.

"Well, then, I may as well be infected by her as by any one," cried
Anthrops, lightly, and was rushing down the steps again, when the
philosopher caught him by the