"That description might serve as a portrait of Pliny the Younger," said the tragedienne, rising.

Where are they now, the company of a summer day? They haunt the shores of Como no more.

VII

A TEMPLE OF JUPITER

HE round temple, with roof supported

T

by columns, was only a dilapidated

summer house, by day, sadly in need

of cement and whitewash. The bat

tered statue on a pedestal in the centre might have represented Neptune, or Esculapius, as well as Jove. The property had been neglected since the decease of the last owner. Nature had made herself self-elected guardian of the stretch of shore in a tangled wilderness of roses and jasmine, brambles and weeds, stifling the mildewed busts and nymphs flanking the path leading to the temple in the embrace of rank vines, and untrimmed shrubbery.

Youth had ridiculed these goddesses, with all the garish blemishes wrought by Time unveiled in the morning light, and even sketched carica

tures of such as lacked noses, an arm, or had fallen prone among the geraniums of the border. Youth escaped as evening deepened to night from the crowded table d'hôte, sought the secluded temple, seated himself on the step, and kindled a fresh cigarette. The beautiful girl opposite at dinner had strolled away with the officer afterward. Youth, gifted with the extraordinary volubility of his years, and the Latin races, had discussed the religions of the world with his elders. He was alert to take a part in this age of eternal inquiry, philosophical or religious. Should he adhere to a stoicism merging into Jansenism and Calvinism; Epicureanism, contented with a flowery surface of things; a Pantheism that adores to the depths; or the Deism which finds the universe full of beneficent sunshine? Lo! the lore of the universities of Bologna, Pisa, and Rome was on his lips. His mother had listened to his prating with complacency. The beautiful girl, femininely inconsequent, had lent ear to the airy badinage of the military hero instead.

The student was a prey to novel emotions, the unfolding of manhood in the "vernal impulsion that makes lyrical all that hath language.' He sought the solitude of the neglected garden to avoid mere noisy companionship, and listen to the nightingales reputed to haunt these thickets. Physical twilight is precious to all souls at times, according to Pater. The reclining nymph on the ledge held her broken urn, and the water flowed into a moss-stained basin below, with a gurgling, monotonous rhythm of sound. The nightingale poured forth a sudden, gushing melody from the foliage, at once melancholy and rich. The cigarette smoke became a white cloud, and touched his eyelids. The flowing water, and the nightingale's note mingled in a blended undertone. Surely the shapes about stirred, the smoke was swept hither and thither into the semblance of a dancing movement of satyrs and naiads wending through the shrubbery. A range of rudely cut heads on a coping near the ground, which were sufficiently coarse to belong to the earthen vases of clay of the age of Numa,

laughed. They were the little gods down among the roots and turf.

"We belong to the most ancient forms of worship, Greek, Assyrian, and Indian," they seemed to clamour. "Make sacrifice to us with cakes and crackling salt! Pour libations of wine about the plane tree!"

A bust on a pillar near-by announced reproachfully to the mortal intruder:

"You drew my profile to-day with a broken chin. I am not a boy, but a girl. I am Juventas, the Hebe of the Greeks. I am Youth. I wish to know, to understand all! My brain teems with many projects of enterprise."

"Child! How you prattle on," remarked the seated Jove.

In the dusk this shrine was blanched to marble and pearl. Jupiter, from whom mankind once received all blessings and misfortunes, held his sceptre of cypress and the thunderbolts, while his throne was made of ivory and gold. On Como the god may have taught the first man to eat acorns from the oak-tree sacred to him.