gathering. I want to indicate too the wind up there in the terrestrial
paradise, ever and always blowing one way. You remember, Mr. Walton?"--
for the young man, getting animated, began to talk as if we had known each
other for some time--and here he repeated the purport of Dante's words in
English:

"An air of sweetness, changeless in its flow,
With no more strength than in a soft wind lies,
Smote peacefully against me on the brow.
By which the leaves all trembling, level-wise,
Did every one bend thitherward to where
The high mount throws its shadow at sunrise."

"I thought you said you did not use translations?"

"I thought it possible that--Miss Walton (?)" interrogatively this--"might
not follow the Italian so easily, and I feared to seem pedantic."

"She won't lag far behind, I flatter myself," I returned. "Whose
translation do you quote?"

He hesitated a moment; then said carelessly:

"I have cobbled a few passages after that fashion myself."

"It has the merit of being near the original at least," I returned; "and
that seems to me one of the chief merits a translation can possess."

"Then," the painter resumed, rather hastily, as if to avoid any further
remark upon his verses, "you see those white things in the air above?" Here