20 Imagi7iary Conversation. them yet, resisting all the efforts, as you see, of hoof and tongue. How beauteous, said she, are the flexible and crimson branches of this arbutus, taking it in one hand and beat- ing with it the back of the other. It seems only to have come out of its crevice to pat my shoulder at dinner, and twitch my myrtle when my head leant back. I wonder hoiv it can grow in such a rock. The arbutus, answered he, clings to the earth tvith the most fondness where it finds her in the worst poverty, and - covers her bewintered bosom with leaves, berries, and flowers. On the same branch is unripe fruit of the most vivid green ; ripening, of the richest orange ; ripened, of perfect scarlet. The maidens of Tyre could never give so brilliant and sweet a lustre to the fleeces of Miletus ; nor did they ever string such even and graceful pearls as the blossoms are, for the brides of Assyria^i or Persian kings. And yet the myrtle is preferred to the arbutus, said The- lymnia, with some slight uneasiness. / know why, replied he . . 77iay I tell it ? She bowed and smiled, perhaps not without the expectation of some compli- ment. He continued . . The myrtle has done what the ar- butus comes too late for. The myrtle has covered vjith her starry crown the beloved of the reaper and vintager: the myrtle was around the head of many a maiden celebrated in song, when the breezes of autumn scattered the flrst leaves and rustled amongst them< on the ground, and when she cried timidly. Rise, rise ! people are coming ! here ! there ! many ! Thelymnia said. That now is not true. Where did you hear it ? and in a softer and lower voice, if I may trust Androcles, O Euthymedes, do not believe it I Either he did not hear her, or dissembled it ; and went on . . This deserves preference ; this deserves immortality ; this deserves a place in the temple of Venus ; in her hand, in her hair, in her breast : Thelymnia herself wears it. We laughed and applauded: she blushed and looked grave and sighed . . for she had never heard any one, I ima- gine, talk so long at once. However it was, she sighed : I saw and heard her. Critolaus gave her some glances : she did not catch them. One of the party clapped his hands
