of those who have ears to hear. Colin sang of Rosalind; Damon, of Myra; Astrophel, of Stella; Cleon, of none of these things. Sing of love!' they cried, and he sang of friendship; 'Of the love of a woman!' and he sang of the honor of a man."

"But in that contest he won the Countess's pearl," said the maid of honor, her chin in her hands; "I knew (dear lady!) what, being woman, was her inmost thought, and in my heart I did applaud her choice."

The man bent his eyes upon her for a moment, then went on with his story, but somewhat slowly.

"When it had thus ended the day, that goodly company betook itself to rest. But Cleon tossed upon his bed, and at the dawn, when the birds began to sing, he arose, dressed himself, and went forth into the dewy gardens of that lovely place. Here he walked up and down, for his unrest would not leave him, and his heart hungered for food it had never tasted. . . There was a fountain springing from a stone basin, and all around were set rose-bushes, seen dimly because of the mist. Presently, when the light was stronger, issued from the house one of those nymphs whom Astrophel's sister delighted to gather around her, and coming to the fountain, began to search about its rim for a jewel that had been lost. She moved like a mist wreath in that misty place, but Cleon saw that her eyes were dark, and her lips a scarlet flower, and that grace was in all her motions. He remembered her name, and that she was loved of Astrophel's sister, and how sweet a lady she was called. Now he watched her weaving paces in the mist, and his fancy worked.... The mist lifted, and a sudden sunshine lit her into splendor; face, form, spirit, all, all her being into fadeless splendor-into fadeless splendor, Dione!"

The maid of honor left once more her grassy throne, and turning from him, moved a step away, then with raised arms clasped her hands behind her head. Her upturned face was hidden from him, but he saw her white bosom rise and fall. He had made pause, but now he continued his story, though with a changed voice. "And Cleon, going to her with due greeting, knelt: she thought (sweet soul!)

to aid her in her search, but indeed he knelt to her, for now he knew that the gods had given him this also-to love a woman. But because the blind boy's shaft, designed to work inward ever deeper and deeper until it reached the heart's core, did now but ensanguine itself, he made no cry nor any sign of that sweet hurt. He found and gave the nymph the jewel she had lost, and broke for her the red, red roses, and while the birds did carol he led her through the morning to the entrance of the house. Up the stone stairs went she, and turned in splendor at the top. A red rose fell . . . the sunlight passed into the house."

The voice of the speaker altered, came nearer the ear of her who stood with heaving bosom, with upturned face, with hands locked tight upon the wonder of this hour.

...

"The rose, the rose has faded, Dione," said the ardent voice. "Look how dead it lies upon my palm! But bend and breathe upon it, and it will bloom again! Ah, that day at Penshurst! when I sought you and they told me you were gone a brother ill and calling for you— a guardian, no friend of mine, to whose house I had not access! And then the Queen must send for me, and there was service to be done-service which got me my knighthood. . . . The stream between us widened. At first I thought to span it with a letter, and then I wrote it not. 'Twas all too frail a bridge to trust my hope upon. For what should have the paper said? I am so near a stranger to thee that scarce have we spoken twice together-therefore love me! I am a man who hath done somewhat in the busy world, and shall, God willing, labor once again, but now a cloud o'ershadows me— therefore love me! I have no wealth or pomp of place to give thee, and I myself am of those whom God hath bound to wander-therefore love me! I chanced upon thee beside a fountain ringed with roses, gray with mist; the sun came out and I saw thee, golden in the golden light-therefore love me! Ah no! you would have answered-I know not what. Therefore I waited, for I have at times a strange patience, a willingness to let Fate guide me. Moreover, I ever thought to meet you, to speak with you face to face again, but it fell not so. Was I

with the court, the country claimed you; went I north or west, needs must I hear of you a lovely star within that galaxy I had left. Thrice were we in company together-cursed spite that gave us only time for courtly greeting, courtly parting!"

The voice came nearer, came very near: "Have I said that I wrote not to you? Ay, but I did, my only dear! And as I wrote, from the court, from the camp, from my poor house of Ferne, I said: 'This will tell her how in her I reverence womankind,' and, 'These are flowers for her coronal-will she not know it among a thousand wreaths?' and, 'This, ah, this, will show her how deeply now hath worked the arrow!' and, 'Now she cannot choose but know-her soul will hear my soul cry!' And that those letters might come to your eyes, I, following the fashion, sealed them only with feigned names, altered circumstance. All who ran might read, but the heart-beat was for your ear .. Dione! Didst never guess?"

She answered in a still voice without moving: "It may be that my soul guessed. . . . If it did so, it was frightened and hid its guess."

"I have told you," said the man. "But, ah, what am I more to you now than on that morn at Penshurst - -a stranger! I know not-even you may love another. ... But no, I know that you do not. As I was then, so am I now, save that I have served the Queen again, and that cloud I spoke of is overpast. I must go forth to-morrow to seek, to find, to win, to lose-God He knoweth what! I would go as your knight avowed, triumphant, your favor in my helm, your kiss like holy water on my brow. See, I kneel to you for some sign, some charm to make my voyage good!”

Very slowly the rose-clad maid of honor let fall her gaze from the evening skies to the man before her; as slowly unclasped her hands so tightly locked behind her upraised head. Her eyes were wide and filled with light, her bosom yet rose and fell quickly; in all her mien there was still wonder, grace supreme, a rich unfolding like the opening of a flower to the bliss of understanding. Trembling,

her hand went down, and resting on his shoulder, gave him her accolade. She bowed herself toward him; a knot of rosy velvet, loosened from her dress, fell upon the turf beside his knee. Ferne caught up the ribbon, pressed it to his lips and thrust it in the breast of his doublet. Rising, he took her in his arms and they kissed. Her breath came pantingly.

"Oh, I envied her!" she cried. "Now I know that I envied while I blessed her-that unknown Dione!"

"My lady and my only dear!" he said. "Oh, Love is as the sun! So the sunshine bide, let come what will come!"

"I rest in the sunshine!" she said. "Oh, Love is bliss. . . but anguish too! I see the white sails of your ships."

She shuddered in his arms. "All that go return not. Ah, tell me that you will come back to me!"

"That will I do," he answered, "an I am a living man. If I die, I shall but wait for thee. I see no parting of our ways."

One hour was theirs. Bread and wine, and flower and fruit, and meeting and parting it held for them. Hand in hand they sat upon the grassy bank, and eyes met eyes, but speech came not often to their lips. They looked and loved, against the winter storing each moment with sweet knowledge, honeyed assurance. Brave and fair were they both, gallant lovers in a gallant time, changing lovelooks in a Queen's garden, above the silver Thames. A tide of amethyst fell the sunset light; the swallows circled overhead; a sound was heard of singing voices; violet knight and rose-colored maid of honor, they came at last to say farewell. That night in the lit Palace, amid the garish crowd, they might see each other again, might touch hands, might even have slight speech together, but not as now could heart speak to heart. They rose from the green bank, and as the sun set, as the moon came out, and the singing ceased, and the world grew ashen, they said what lovers say on the brink of absence, and at the last they kissed good-by.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

F

OR the first time the whole history

of one of the great national sites of Egypt has been opened before us; dating from the beginning of the kingdom, and ending with almost the last of its native kings,-from Mena, about 4700 B.C., to Nekht-hor-heb, 370 B.C. History is here laid out before us in strata, from which the past can be read as we lift them away one from another.

In order to read, however, one must know the alphabet of the subject; and that has only lately been learnt, from the pottery, the flints, the beads, which show, each, the age to which they belong. Excavation on a site with a long history is mere destruction if each stratum is not read and interpreted intelligibly as it is opened: unfortunately, this has never been done

before on any such site. On the earliest sacred site of Abydos, the first capital of Egypt, temples had been piled one on the ruins of another until ten ages of building stood stacked together in about twenty feet depth of ruins. Each temple had become partly ruined after a few centuries, and then at last was pulled down, leaving a foot or two of the walls and foundations; and a new temple of a different plan was then erected on the ground. America is not old enough for this to be done even once; but London stands on a mound of over twenty feet of ruins, from which its past will some day be read as we now read that of Egypt.

The earlier temples were all of mud brick. Stone first appears for the doorways of the fourth temple, that of the

Sculp

sixth dynasty, about 3400 B.C. tured stone walls are found of the eleventh dynasty; and walls were wholly of stone in the twelfth dynasty, about 2700 B.C., and in the later temples. These buildings of the well-known historic times are, however, of much less importance to us than the earlier temples, which yield us fresh views of the civilization to which they belong.

About the middle of the second dynasty, say 4300 B.C., a clearance of the temple offerings was made, and hundreds of small objects more or less injured were thrown into a disused chamber, which served as a rubbish-hole and was later buried under fifteen feet of ruins. The contents of this chamber were old and disregarded at that time; and as the vase of Mena (Fig. 1), the first king, has been found close by at the same level, it seems that we should refer the contents of this limbo to the first dynasty. Groping in the thick brown. organic mud of this rubbish-hole, I lifted out one by one the priceless examples of glazed work and ivory of this earliest age of great art-an art of which we had never understood the excellence from the traces hitherto known. The ivory was sadly rotted, and could scarcely be lifted without dropping asunder in flakes. So when I found that I had touched a piece it was left alone, and other parts were cleaned, until at last a

FIG. 2.-A WONDERFUL PORTRAIT IN IVORY Statuette of a King of the first Dynasty 4500 B.C. Actual size

patch of ground was left where several pieces of ivory had been observed. Cutting deep around this, I detached the

whole block of sixty or eighty pounds of earth, and had it removed on a tray to my storeroom. There it dried gradually for two or three weeks; and then with a camel's-hair paint-brush I began to gently dissect it and to trace the ivory figures. Not a single piece was broken or spoilt by thus working it out, and noble figures of lions, a bear, a large ape, and several boys came gradually to light. Suddenly a patterned robe and then a marvellous face appeared in the dust, and there came forth from his six-thousand-year sleep one of the finest portrait figures that have ever been seen (Fig. 2). A single photograph can give but little idea of the subtlety of the face and the expression, which changes. with every fresh light in which

it is seen. Wearing the crown of Upper Egypt, and clad in his thick embroidered robe, this old king, wily yet feeble with the weight of years, stands for the diplomacy and statecraft of the oldest civilized kingdom that we know. No later artist of Egypt, no Roman portraitmaker, no Renaissance Italian, has outdone the truth and expression of this oldest royal portrait, coming from the first dynasty of Egypt. The simplicity and lack of pretension are almost baffling; it does not claim any idealism or beauty, it scarcely seems to intend to be so fine or powerful, and yet it appeals equally to the first artists and to the ordinary man. No other object has so generally compelled the admiration of visitors in any of our annual exhibitions.

That this did not stand alone as a stray phenomenon is seen by the group of other ivories, of which we may instance a very small one of a woman (Fig. 3), which shows the same character of work in simplicity and directness, and in the perfectly natural expression of the statuette. Among other figures discovered, those of boys, standing, walking, and seated, are all true and unconventional in form, and show firm and accurate modelling. A little bear seated on the ground, and couchant lions, and a mastiff show that animals were studied and under

stood as well as men. We must now grant in future that a complete art had arisen nearly seven thousand years ago, and that it has seldom been equalled and hardly ever surpassed in the five fresh births of art which have occupied the course of human history.

Nor was the skill of technical work neglected. The abundance of vases and bowls, cut from the hardest and most refractory materials, granite, syenite, porphyry, rock crystal, and obsidian, which we found in the Royal Tombs of this age, show a taste and ability for fine material and work which was never equalled in later times. And the mastery of glazing provided large vases with the royal name inlaid, as we see by the piece pictured on the preceding page (Fig. 1). This was part of a globular vase, eight inches wide, of green glaze, with the royal hawk-name inlaid with purple glaze. Here we have the property of the oldest king in the world whose name is preserved by history-Mena, the first king of the first dynasty of Egypt. This vase must have been handled by this figurehead of all monarchy, and almost certainly was dedicated by him in the primitive temple of the capital.

Strange indeed it is to look on so personal a link, and to think that the whole sum of what we know as human experience has come and gone since this was last worthily handled; the pyramids, Thothmes, Rameses, the Greek, the Roman, the Northman, all were unthought of when this last saw the light.

The use of colored glazes was also carried