ssly in
its meshes. Again she sang:--

"From the swamp the mist is creeping;
Fly the startled sunbeams weeping,
Up the mountain feebly flying,
Paling, waning, fainting, dying.
All their cheerful work undoing,
Crawls the cruel mist pursuing.
Shrouded in a purple dimness,
Quenched the sunlight is in shadow;
Over hill and wood and meadow
Broads the mist in sullen grimness."

She had already woven a great deal of her shining hair into a curious
braid, so broad and intricate as to be almost a golden web. A strange
fascination held Anthrops spell-bound; it was as if her song were
weaving her web, and her fingers chanting her song, and as if both song
and web were made of the wavering cloud that still shifted into endless
dioramas. Once more she sang:--

"Drop by drop the charmed ear tingling,
Rills of music intermingling,
Murmuring in their mazy winding,
All the steeped senses blinding,
Their intricate courses wending,
Closer still the streams are blending.
Down the rapid channel rushing,
Floods of melody are gushing;
Flush the tender rills with gladness,
Drown the listener in sweet madness.
Onward sweeps the eddying singing,
Ever new enchantment bringing.
Break the bubbles on the river,
Faints the wearied sound in darkness;
But, as one that always hearkens,
Floats the charmed soul forever."

As she finished the song, she arose, and threw over the youth the web
of her fatal hair. The charmed song had so incorporated itself with the
odorous air of the cavern, that every breath he drew seemed to be laden
with the subtle music. It oppressed, stifled him; he strove in vain to
escape its influence; and as he felt the soft hair brush his cheek, he
swooned upon the ground.

The philosopher's study was a very different place from the green
wood,--perched up, as it was, on the summit of a bare, bleak mountain.
The room was fitted up with the frugality demanded by philosophic
indifference to luxury, and the abundance necessitated by a wide range
of study. The walls were hung with a number of pictures, in whose
subjects an observer might detect a remarkable similarity. A satirical
pencil had been engaged in depicting some of the most striking instances
of successful manly resistance to female tyranny, of manly contempt for
feminine weakness, of manly endurance of woman-inflicted injury. The
unfortunate Longinus turned with contemptuous pity from the trembling
Zenobia;