the horizon, far away, the very clouds were motionless;
and where the sunbeams marked a tranquil sail, it seemed, with wave and
cloud, to express only Eternal Repose. But the eager child pressed
onward, for the crown of the hill seemed almost reached, and she longed
for a wider, wider view of the beautiful AEgean.

Suddenly she arrived where a sculptured stone lay in the pathway. Some
patient and skilful hand had wrought there the emblem of a rose, and
among the chiselled petals stood drops of rain, collected as in a cup.
On the border a pure white bird had just alighted, and Evadne watched
how it bent and rose and seemed to caress the flower of stone, while it
drank of the dew around and within it. Her eyes filled with tears as she
mused on the vanished hand of Art, whose work Nature now reclaimed for
this humble, but grateful use. The dove took wing, and the child
proceeding came to a level turf where a temple of white marble stood.
Eight slender columns upheld a marble canopy, beneath which stood the
image of a god. One raised hand seemed to implore silence, while the
other showed clasping fingers, but they closed upon nothing. Around the
statue's base lay scattered stones. Evadne gathered them, and reunited
they formed the lyre of Apollo. She replaced, for an instant, in the
cold and constant grasp a fragment of the ruined harp. Then the aspect
of the god became regretful, sad, as of one who desires a voice from
the lips of the dead. Hastily she flung the charm away, and gentle grace
returned to the listening boy, from whom, sleeping, some nymph might
have stolen his lyre, whose complaining chords now vibrated to his ear
and called their master to the pursuit. Evadne reposed on the steps of
the temple, and fixedly gazed upon the god. Her fancy endowed the firm
hand with an unbent bow; then the figure seemed to pause in the chase,
and listen for the baying of the hounds. Then she imaged a shepherd's
staff, and the shepherd-god waited tenderly for the voice of a lost
lamb.

"So stood Apollo in Thessaly," she softly said, "when he carried the
shepherd's staff. Oh that I were the lost Thessalian lamb for whom he
waits, that he might descend and I die for joy on his breast!"

Then, half afraid that the lips might break their marble stillness in
reply, she asked the protection of the deity, whom she was fain to
adore, but whom her adopted parents dared to despise.

Sole worshipper at a deserted shrine, she had no offer