But branches current yet in kindred veins.' Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, Then once more, • Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began, And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. 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, As I might slay this child, if good need were, 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 With that she kiss'd His forehead, then, a moment after, clung Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, So stood that same fair creature at the door. 'I trust you,' said the other, for we two Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine; But yet your mother's jealous temperamentLet not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear This whole foundation ruin, and I lose My honor, these their lives.' Ah, fear not,' Replied Melissa; 'no-I would not tell, No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, No, not to answer, madam, all those hard things That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.' 'Be it so,' the other, that we still may lead The new light up, and culminate in peace, Said Cyril, Madam, he the wisest man Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls Of Lebanonian cedar; nor should you me Tho', madam, you should answer, we would ask —— Less welcome find among us, if you came Among us, debtors for our lives to you, Myself for something more.' He said not what, But Thanks,' she answer'd, 'go; we have been. too long Together; keep your hoods about the face; Speak little; mix not with the rest; and hold We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child, And held her round the knees against his waist, And blew the swollen cheek of a trumpeter, While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd; And thus our conference closed. And then we strolled For half the day thro' stately theatres Bench'd crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard The circle rounded under female hands The morals, something of the frame, the rock, |