"'twould be worth dwelling in for the sake of Hyspiros,--as grand
a god as any of the Thunderers in the empyrean!"

"Surely there is a next world"--murmured Theos, scarcely knowing
what he said--"A world where thou and I, Sah-luma, and all the
masters and servants of song shall meet and hold high festival!"

Sah-luma laughed again, a little sadly this time, and shrugged his
shoulders.

"Believe it not!" he said, and there was a touch of melancholy in
his rich voice--"We are midges in a sunbeam,--emmets on a sand-
hill...no more! Is there a next world, thinkest thou, for the bees
who die of surfeit in the nilica-cups?--for the whirling drift of
brilliant butterflies that sleepily float with the wind unknowing
whither, till met by the icy blast of the north, they fall like
broken and colorless leaves in the dust of the high-road? Is there
a next world for this?"--and he took from a tall vase near at hand
a delicate flower, lily-shaped and deliciously odorous, . . "The
expression of its soul or mind is in its fragrance,--even as the
expression of ours finds vent in thought and aspiration,--have we
more right to live again than this most innocently fair blossom,
unsmirched by deeds of evil? Nay!--I would more easily believe in
a heaven for birds and flowers, than for women and men!"

A shadow of pain darkened his handsome face as he spoke, . . and
Theos, gazing full at him, became suddenly filled with pity and
anxiety,--he passionately longed to assure him that there was in
very truth a future higher and happier existence,--he, Theos,
would vouch for the fact! But how? ... and why? ... What could he