question whether it might indeed be vouchsafed to living mortals to see
the souls of the departed, and hear their voices, exercised his mind so
greatly that he could not forbear asking his sister's opinion on such
matters.

But Melissa's good sense had felt that there was something not quite
sound in the Magian's argument--nor did she conceal her conviction that
Philip, who was always hard to convince, had accepted Serapion's views,
not because he yielded to the weight of his reasons, but because he--and
Alexander, too, for that matter--hoped by his mediation to see the
beautiful Korinna again.

This the artist admitted; but when he jested of the danger of a jealous
quarrel between him and his brother, for the sake of a dead girl, there
was something hard in his tone, and very unlike him, which Melissa did
not like.

They breathed more freely as they got out into the open air, and her
efforts to change the subject of their conversation were happily
seconded; for at the door they met the family of their neighbor Skopas,
the owner of a stone-quarry, whose grave-plot adjoined theirs, and
Melissa was happy again as she heard her brother laughing as gayly as
ever with Skopas's pretty daughter. The mania had not taken such deep
hold of the light-hearted young painter as of Philip, the poring and
gloomy philosopher; and she was glad as she heard her friend Ino call
Alexander a faithless butterfly, while her sister Helena declared that he
was a godless scoffer.