s of his own, by which (though mistakenly) he believed he
had improved it: a song of praise put in the mouth of a disciple of
Plato: its name, "Eupolis, his Hymn to the Creator." As he turned
the pages, his eyes paused and fastened themselves on a passage here
and there:

"Sole from sole Thou mak'st the sun
On his burning axles run:
The stars like dust around him fly,
And strew the area of the sky:
He drives so swift his race above,
Mortals can't perceive him move:
So smooth his course, oblique or straight,
Olympus shakes not with his weight.
As the Queen of solemn Night
Fills at his vase her orb of light--
Imparted lustre--thus we see
The solar virtue shines by Thee.
EIRESIONE! we'll no more
For its fancied aid implore,
Since bright _oil_ and _wool_ and _wine_
And life-sustaining _bread_ are Thine;
_Wine_ that sprightly mirth supplies,
Noble wine for sacrifice. . . ."

The verses, though he repeated them, had no meaning for him.
He remembered her sitting at the table by the window (now surrendered
to Johnny Whitelamb) and transcribing them into a fair copy, sitting
with head bent and the sunlight playing on her red-brown hair: he
remembered her standing by his chair with a flushed face, waiting for
his verdict. But though his memory retained these visions, they
carried no sentiment. He only thought of the young, almost boyish,
promise in the lines:

"Omen, monster, prodigy!
Or nothing is, or Jove, from thee.
Whether various Nature's play,
Or she, renversed, thy will obey,
And to rebel man declare
Famine, plague or wasteful war . . .
No evil can from Thee proceed;
'Tis only suffered, not decreed. . . ."

He gazed from the careful handwriting to the horizon beyond his
window. Why had he fished out the poem from its drawer? She, the
writer--his child--was a wanton.

CHAPTER V.

Hetty had found a patch of ragged turf and mallow where the woodstack
hid her from the parsonage windows; and sat there in the morning
sun--unconsciously, as usual, courting its full rays. Between her
and the stack the ground was bare, strewn with straw and broken
twigs. She supposed that her father would send for her soon: but she
was preparing no defence, no excuses. She hoped, indeed, that the
interview would be short, but simply because the account she must
rende