The haughty spirit of the Greek girl was subdued at his tone; she rose and stood before him, humbly and silently as a child.

"Had I been of like faith to thee, wretched one," said Irenæus, "I should have cursed thee: but the Christians do not so. It ill becomes one who is passing into the presence of the All-merciful to return evil for evil. Therefore, thine own conscience be thy sole torment !"

At this moment, even through the dense walls of the dungeon, penetrated the shouts of the multitude. When the sound fell on the ears of Stratonice, it seemed to rouse her almost to frenzy.

"Oh father-sister-pardon!" she shrieked. "Leave me not with your blood upon my head! Pardon-pardon!"

"I do pardon thee, poor unfortunate," answered Irenæus. "The deed has given to her and to me a glorious crown, while thou thyself hast lost all."

Mæsa bent over her sister, and laid on her brow the kiss of peace.

"I too pardon thee, Stratonice," she said. "I shall soon pain thee no longer; his love was very sweet to me," and the young girl's voice trembled; "but when I have gone away there will be none to part thee from Cleomenes."

"And now trouble us no more-t -thou whom I have so long called daughter," said Irenæus. "Leave us to prepare for the death thou hast caused."

He drew Mæsa from her; Stratonice shrunk away, and crouched down in the farthest corner of the dark cell. Irenæus and his daughter sat together, and awaited in silence and calmness the fatal summons.

Louder and louder grew the shouts of the multitudeit seemed as if they came nearer and nearer, until they reached the prison itself. Suddenly the doors were flung open, and, at the threshold, stood, not the officer who bore the signal of death, but the noble and beloved form of Cleomenes the Greek, his countenance gleaming with joy, his bright hair flung back, his right hand waving aloft a parchment.

It was the celebrated Edict of Galerius; the Christians were saved.

By a sudden determination of policy, rather than an impulse of mercy, the new Emperor had issued a general pardon to his Christian subjects, with permission to exercise their religion in peace.

Wildly from that murky cell rose up the cry of joy and deliverance the prayer of thanksgiving. The wife clung to her husband-all difference of faith forgotten; tearseven tears-bedewed the iron cheeks of Irenæus as he clasped his daughter to his bosom, and knew that the shadow of death no longer gathered over them, while Cleomenes knelt beside Mæsa, kissing her hands, her garments, with delirious joy.

And there in the darkness-afar from all-crouched Stratonice, not daring to approach their happiness—glaring upon them with starting eyes and burning brain, one moment wild with rapture at their deliverance and her own freedom from the sin of murder, and then stung to madness by the loving words and joyful looks which Cleomenes lavished on his Mæsa.

At last Irenæus turned to the young Greek, and the tenderness of the happy father became merged in the sternness of the Christian zealot. He drew Mæsa from her lover, and said

"The blessings of those whom thou hast once saved, and to whom thou hast this day been a joyful messenger of deliverance, be upon thee, Cleomenes! but thou must leave us now for ever. I dare not brave the wrath of the Christians' God by giving my daughter to an idolater.”

From her dark hiding-place, Stratonice started to her feet, and her eyes were fixed on the countenance of him she loved so madly. But no struggle of disappointed hope darkened the face of the young Greek. Cleomenes knelt before Irenæus, and took his hand, saying—

"Father-even so! Give me my heart's beloved; for Mæsa's God is mine--I have become a Christian."

A cry so wild-so despairing-that it might have been the shriek of a parting soul, burst from the lips of Stratonice, and, ere the lover could embrace his betrothed, she stood between them.

Masa," she said, in a hoarse whisper, "hadst thou died this day I would have died too. Thou art saved-thou art happy-therefore, also, I will die." She drew a short Greek dagger from her robe, and plunged it into her bosom.

Stratonice

Life parted-not suddenly but lingeringly. lay with her head pillowed on the breast of her adopted mother; with ebbing life all frenzy passed away. Only still wandered to the face of Cleomenes, with mourn

her dim

eyes

ful tenderness.

"Forgive me," she murmured: "thou art happy, Cleomenes, and I die; forgive me for my love's sake."

Mæsa bent over the dying girl, and laid a crucifix on her bosom; but the feeble hand of Stratonice cast it aside with scorn. She lifted herself up with wonderful energy, raised her arms in the air, and cried—

"Gods of Greece-gods of my country-I have lived faithful to your forsaken shrines, and faithful I will die. Life has been a torture to me; may I find peace in the land of the dead! Spirits of my fathers, receive the soul of Stratonice!"

She fell back; and the beautiful form was only clay.

THE STORY OF HYAS.

Poets are all who love-who feel great truths,

And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.-PHILIP BAILY.

CHAPTER I.

SUNSHINE, clear, warm, and golden, such as is seen only in the land of Greece, rested on the summits of Mount Hymettus; Phœbus himself might have stayed his chariot there to gaze from the twin-crested hill, far over the Ægean, towards his native Delos. A troop of young Athenians went out of the city gates, all mounted and arrayed for the sport in which the youth of Attica delighted—a bear-hunt. The advancing strides of civilization had driven most of the wild beasts from the Attic promontory, far into the woody recesses of Etolia and the mountains of Thessaly; but still, occasionally, the "honey-lover" was attracted by the treasures of Mount Hymettus, and then, when the news reached Athens, all the youth set forth to join in the excitement of a bearhunt. The groves of the Academy were almost deserted— there were no wrestlers to join in the exercise of the Lyceum -all went forth to the sports on Mount Hymettus.

"Ha!" cried one of the young hunters, turning round and casting his eyes back on the city; "so the philosopher has still kept some truants by his side! Look, there is a little group yet on the promontory of Sunium, like a cluster of ants on the top of an ant-hill."

"An apt metaphor, O Lycaon," answered another. "I doubt not it would gratify the sage Plato-the great emmet lecturing the smaller ants on the pursuit of wisdom and foresight."

"L Rather say the Athenian bee, as our witty Crito called him," cried a youth gorgeously attired, with an affected lisp in his voice. แ Now, Lycaon, I will prove to you all, that though a bee is an emmet, an emmet is not a bee; therefore Plato is not a bee. And moreover

"By Harpocrates! peace, thou glib-tongued Sophist," said Lycaon; "we all know thou art not among the philosopher's scholars—would thou wert, if Plato's wisdom could stop thy tongue."

"His wisdom could not keep our young Athenians from the bear-hunt," observed another of the troop. "I wonder who are those few who stay with him now?"

"Glaucus and Myron, I know-oh, and Hyas! who brings his wealth among the poverty-stricken philosophers: be sure there will be Hyas among them."

"Hyas is here," said a voice, low, sweet, and yet with an indescribable burden of sadness in its tones; and as the speaker advanced, his countenance was seen. It was full of thought, yet its contour was still youthful—almost feminine in grace. It might not have been perfect in form, and yet it was beautiful; there was a depth and earnestness in the large clear eyes, changeable in their hue as the eastern sky after sunset, now of an intense brown, now shaded into the softest gray. His hair, of that deep red gold-colour, which the Greeks esteemed most beautiful, waved in long curls upon his shoulders, after the fashion of the time. But over all the charms of his face and mien was seen the same shadow which was heard in his voice, like one sad tone in a pleasant melody. No pain contracted the beautiful lips, and yet even their smile ́ was pensive. No deep sorrow sat in the clear eyes, and yet there was in them a vague unquiet, a restless looking-forward, as if the soul within was ever yearning for something which it could not obtain.

"Hyas here!" repeated Lycaon, with a slightly sarcastic meaning in his tones. "Art thou so soon weary of the

philosopher's lore?"

Hyas smiled, and answered without bitterness," All men

S