seemed a brighter light within the light cast by the sun.
Flower and plant and tree and all living things seemed to
him to be glistening and singing, and to have for him, as he
for them, a loving friendship. And, looking up to the sky,
he saw, drawn out stringwise, a flight of cranes, addressed
to Egypt. And between his heart and them ran, like a
rippling path that the sun sends across the sea, a stream of
good-will and understanding. They seemed a part of himself,
winged in the blue heaven, and aware of the part of him that
trod earth, that was entering the grave and shadowy wood
that neighbored Corinth.

"The cranes vanished from overhead, the sky arched without
stain. Ibycus, the sacred poet, with his staff and his lyre,
went on into the wood. Now the light faded and there was
green gloom, like the depths of Father Sea.

"Now robbers lay masked in the wood--"

Jamie and Alice sat very still, listening. Strickland kept his eyes
on the reading youth.

"Now robbers lay masked in the wood--violent men and
treacherous, watching for the unwary, to take from them
goods and, if they resisted, life. In a dark place they lay
in wait, and from thence they sprang upon Ibycus. 'What hast
thou? Part it from thyself and leave it with us!'

"Ibycus, who could sing of the wars of the Greeks and the
Trojans no less well than of the joys of young love, made