as glad when she and Dion set out again, and followed the banks of
the Alpheus, leaving the cries of the city behind them. It seemed to her
that they were traveling to some hidden treasure, secluded in the folds
of a green valley where the feet of men seldom, if ever, came. Dion's
eyes told her that they were drawing nearer and nearer to the secret he
knew of, and was going to reveal to her. She often caught him looking
at her with an almost boyish expression of loving anticipation; and more
than once he laughed happily when he saw her question, but he would not
give her an answer.

Peasants worked in the vineyards, shoulder-high in the plants, brown and
sweating in the glare. Swarthy children, with intelligent eyes, often
with delicate noses, and those pouting lips which are characteristic of
many Greek statues, ran to stare at them, and sometimes followed them a
little way, but without asking for alms. Then the solitudes took them,
and they wound on and on, with their guide as their only companion.

He was a gentle, even languid-looking youth, called Nicholas Agathoulos,
who was a native of Patras, but who had lived a good deal in Athens,
who spoke a few words of English and French, and who professed a deep
passion for Lord Byron. Nicholas rode on a mule, leading, or not leading
as the case might be--for he was a charmingly careless person--a
second mule on which was fastened Rosamund's and Dion's scanty luggage.
Rosamund, like a born vagabond, was content to travel in this glorious
climate with scarcely any impedimenta. When Nicholas was looked at he
smiled peacefully under his quiet and unpretending black mustache. When
he was not looked at he seemed to sleep with open eyes. He never sang
or whistled, had no music at all in him; but he could quote stanzas from
"Don Juan" in Greek, and, when he did that, he woke up, sparks of fire
glowed in his eyes, and his employers realized that he shared to the
full the patriotism of his countrymen.

Did he know the secret of Olympia which Dion was concealing so
carefully, and enjoying so much, as the little train of pilgrims wound
onwards among fruit trees and shrubs of arbutus, penetrating farther and
ever farther into a region sweet and remote? Of course he must know it.

"I shall ask Nicholas," Rosamund said once to Dion, perversely.

"What?"

"You know perfectly well what."

His face was a map of innocence as he touched his thin horse with the
whip and rode forward a