A stormless summer.'

'Let the Princess judge

Of that,' she said: 'farewell, Sir-and to you.

I shudder at the sequel, but I go.'

Are you that Lady Psyche,' I rejoin'd,
'The fifth in line from that old Florian,
Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall
(The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights)

As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell,
And all else fled: we point to it, and we say,
The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold,
But branches current yet in kindred veins.'
'Are you that Psyche,' Florian added,' she
With whom I sang about the morning hills,
Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly,
And snared the squirrel of the glen? are you
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow,
To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read

My sickness down to happy dreams? are you
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one?

You were that Psyche, but what are you now?'

'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said, ' for whom I would be that for ever which I seem,

A woman, if I might sit beside your feet,

And glean your scatter'd sapience.'

Then once more,

'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began,

That on her bridal morn before she past

From all her old companions, when the king Kiss'd her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties Would still be dear beyond the southern hills; That were there any of our people there

In want or peril, there was one to hear

And help them: look! for such are these and I.' 'Are you that Psyche,' Florian ask'd, 'to whom, In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn

Came flying while you sat beside the well?

The creature laid his muzzle on your lap,

And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept.

That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept.

O by the bright head of my little niece,

You were that Psyche, and what are you now?'
You are that Psyche,' Cyril said again,

'The mother of the sweetest little maid,

That ever crow'd for kisses.'

'Out upon it!'

She answer'd, 'peace! and why should I not play

The Spartan Mother with emotion, be

The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind?

Him you call great: he for the common weal,

The fading politics of mortal Rome,

As I might slay this child, if good need were,

Slew both his sons: and I, shall I, on whom

The secular emancipation turns

Of half this world, be swerved from right to save

A prince, a brother? a little will I yield.

Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you.

O hard, when love and duty clash! I fear

My conscience will not count me fleckless; yet -
Hear my conditions: promise (otherwise

You perish) as you came to slip away,

To-day, to-morrow, soon: it shall be said,

These women were too barbarous, would not learn; They fled, who might have shamed us: promise, all.'

What could we else, we promised each; and she, Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused

By Florian; holding out her lily arms

Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said:

'You are grown, and yet I knew you at the first.

I am very glad, and I am very vext

To see you, Florian. I give thee to death,

My brother! it was duty spoke, not I.

My needful seeming harshness, pardon it.

Our mother, is she well?'

With that she kiss'd

His forehead, and a moment after clung

About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up

From out a common vein of memory

Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth,
And far allusion, till the gracious dews
Began to glisten and to fall and while

They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice,
'I brought a message here from Lady Blanche.'
Back started she, and turning round we saw
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood,
Melissa, with her hand upon the lock,
A rosy blonde, and in a college gown
That clad her like an April daffodilly
(Her mother's colour) with her lips apart,
And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes,
As bottom agates seem to wave and float
In crystal currents of clear morning seas.