the adjacent sea, scattered themselves over that chamber, whose walls
vied with the richest colors of the most glowing flowers. Besides the
gem of the room--the painting of Leda and Tyndarus--in the centre of
each compartment of the walls were set other pictures of exquisite
beauty. In one you saw Cupid leaning on the knees of Venus; in another
Ariadne sleeping on the beach, unconscious of the perfidy of Theseus.
Merrily the sunbeams played to and fro on the tessellated floor and the
brilliant walls--far more happily came the rays of joy to the heart of
the young Glaucus.

'I have seen her, then,' said he, as he paced that narrow chamber--'I
have heard her--nay, I have spoken to her again--I have listened to the
music of her song, and she sung of glory and of Greece. I have
discovered the long-sought idol of my dreams; and like the Cyprian
sculptor, I have breathed life into my own imaginings.'

Longer, perhaps, had been the enamoured soliloquy of Glaucus, but at
that moment a shadow darkened the threshold of the chamber, and a young
female, still half a child in years, broke upon his solitude. She was
dressed simply in a white tunic, which reached from the neck to the
ankles; under her arm she bore a basket of flowers, and in the other
hand she held a bronze water-vase; her features were more formed than
exactly became her years, yet they were soft and feminine in their
outline, and without being beautiful in themselves, they were almost
made so by their beauty of expression; there was something ineffably
gentle, and you would say patient, in her aspect. A look of resigned
sorrow, of tranquil endurance, had banished the smile, but not the
sweetness, from her lips; something timid and cautious in her
step--something wandering in her eyes, led you to suspect the affliction
which she had suffered from her birth--she was blind; but in the orbs