but with colors more delicate than in nature. On her arms were broad
golden armlets, and the drapery, a long flowing robe, was blue,
embroidered with yellow flowers. A stringed instrument rested on her
knee, and she was represented playing and singing. The bull, with
lowered horns, appeared walking; about his chest hung a garland of
flowers mingled with ears of yellow corn, oak, ivy, and various other
leaves, green and russet, and acorns and crimson berries. The garland
and blue dress were made of malachite, _lapis lazuli_, and various
precious stones.

"Aha, my fair Phoenician, I know you well!" thought I exultingly,
"though I never saw you before with a harp in your hand. But were you
not gathering flowers, O lovely daughter of Agenor, when that celestial
animal, that masquerading god, put himself so cunningly in your way to
be admired and caressed, until you unsuspiciously placed yourself on his
back? That explains the garland. I shall have a word to say about this
pretty thing to my learned and very superior host."

The statue stood on an octagonal pedestal of a highly polished
slaty-gray stone, and on each of its eight faces was a picture in which
one human figure appeared. Now, from gazing on the statue itself I fell
to contemplating one of these pictures with a very keen interest, for
the figure, I recognized, was a portrait of the beautiful girl Yoletta.
The picture was a winter landscape. The earth was white, not with snow,
but with hoar frost; the distant trees, clothed by the frozen moisture
as if with a feathery foliage, looked misty against the whitey-blue
wintry sky. In the foreground, on the pale frosted grass, stood the
girl, in a dark maroon dress, with silver embroidery on the bosom, and a
dark red cap on her head. Close to her drooped the slender terminal
twigs of a tree, sparkling with rime and icicle, and on the twigs were