massy curls on each side of his face, and fell in sunny
torrents down his neck. And from the back of the beautiful youth there
fluttered forth two wings, the tremulous plumage of which seemed to have
been bathed in a sunset: so various, so radiant, and so novel were its
shifting and wondrous tints; purple, and crimson, and gold; streaks of
azure, dashes of orange and glossy black; now a single feather,
whiter than light, and sparkling like the frost, stars of emerald and
carbuncle, and then the prismatic blaze of an enormous brilliant! A
quiver hung at the side of the beautiful youth, and he leant upon a bow.

'Oh! God, for God thou must be!' at length exclaimed Ixion. 'Do I behold
the bright divinity of Love?'

'I am indeed Cupid,' replied the youth; 'and am curious to know what
Ixion is thinking about.' 'Thought is often bolder than speech.'
'Oracular, though a mortal! You need not be afraid to trust me. My aid
I am sure you must need. Who ever was found in a reverie on the
green turf, under the shade of spreading trees, without requiring the
assistance of Cupid? Come! be frank, who is the heroine? Some love-sick
nymph deserted on the far earth; or worse, some treacherous mistress,
whose frailty is more easily forgotten than her charms? 'Tis a miserable
situation, no doubt. It cannot be your wife?'

'Assuredly not,' replied Ixion, with energy.

'Another man's?'

'No.'

'What! an obdurate maiden?'

Ixion shook his head.

'It must be a widow, then,' continued Cupid. 'Who ever heard before of
such a piece of work about a widow!'

'Have pity upon me, dread Cupid!' exclaimed the King of Thessaly, rising
suddenly from the ground, and falling on his knee before the God.
'Thou art the universal friend of man, and all nations alike throw their
incense on thy altars. Thy divine discrimination has not deceived thee.
I _am_ in love; desperately, madly, fatally enamoured. The object of my
passion is neither my own wife nor another man's. In spite of all they
have said and sworn, I am a moral member of society. She is neither a
maid nor a widow. She is------'

'What? what?' exclaimed the impatient deity.

'A Goddess!' replied the King.

'Wheugh!' whistled Cupid. 'What! has my mischievous mother been
indulging you with an innocent flirtation?'

'Yes; but it produced no effect upon me.'

'You have a stout heart, then. Perhaps you have been reading poetry with
Minerva, and are caught in one of her Platonic man-traps.