’Fair Ione!  I see it also.  It is astonishingly distinct.  The giant seems seated on the brow of the mountain, the different shades of the cloud appear to form a white robe that sweeps over its vast breast and limbs; it seems to gaze with a steady face upon the city below, to point with one hand, as thou sayest, over its glittering streets, and to raise the other (dost thou note it?) towards the higher heaven.  It is like the ghost of some huge Titan brooding over the beautiful world he lost; sorrowful for the past—­yet with something of menace for the future.’

’Could that mountain have any connection with the last night’s earthquake?  They say that, ages ago, almost in the earliest era of tradition, it gave forth fires as AEtna still.  Perhaps the flames yet lurk and dart beneath.’

‘It is possible,’ said Glaucus, musingly.

‘Thou sayest thou art slow to believe in magic,’ said Nydia, suddenly.  ’I have heard that a potent witch dwells amongst the scorched caverns of the mountain, and yon cloud may be the dim shadow of the demon she confers with.’

‘Thou art full of the romance of thy native Thessaly,’ said Glaucus; ‘and a strange mixture of sense and all conflicting superstitions.’

‘We are ever superstitious in the dark,’ replied Nydia.  ‘Tell me,’ she added, after a slight pause, ’tell me, O Glaucus! do all that are beautiful resemble each other?  They say you are beautiful, and Ione also.  Are your faces then the same?  I fancy not, yet it ought to be so.’

‘Fancy no such grievous wrong to Ione,’ answered Glaucus, laughing.  ’But we do not, alas! resemble each other, as the homely and the beautiful sometimes do.  Ione’s hair is dark, mine light; Ione’s eyes are—­what color, Ione?  I cannot see, turn them to me.  Oh, are they black? no, they are too soft.  Are they blue? no, they are too deep:  they change with every ray of the sun—­I know not their color:  but mine, sweet Nydia, are grey, and bright only when Ione shines on them!  Ione’s cheek is...’

‘I do not understand one word of thy description,’ interrupted Nydia, peevishly.  ’I comprehend only that you do not resemble each other, and I am glad of it.’

‘Why, Nydia?’ said Ione.

Nydia colored slightly.  ‘Because,’ she replied, coldly, ’I have always imagined you under different forms, and one likes to know one is right.’

‘And what hast thou imagined Glaucus to resemble?’ asked Ione, softly.

‘Music!’ replied Nydia, looking down.

‘Thou art right,’ thought Ione.

‘And what likeness hast thou ascribed to Ione?’

‘I cannot tell yet,’ answered the blind girl; ’I have not yet known her long enough to find a shape and sign for my guesses.’

‘I will tell thee, then,’ said Glaucus, passionately; ’she is like the sun that warms—­like the wave that refreshes.’

‘The sun sometimes scorches, and the wave sometimes drowns,’ answered Nydia.