CUPID AND PSYCHE. 
133 
murmuring along through the breadth and length of 
the sweetest pastoral scenery,— it was then that 
Love, during his pilgrimage to the shrines of the 
flowers, chanced to alight in one of those green 
valleys, which opened out every way beyond the 
long avenues of venerable oaks, that threw their 
shady arms over the smooth and flowery plains of 
Arcadia. Below the oaks spread many a long under¬ 
wood of fragrant Acacias, of every hue which the 
queenly Rose wears through the endless changes of 
her diversified attire,—from the deep crimson to the 
warm white, as it deepens upward, tint into tint, till 
you cannot tell where the first faint blush com¬ 
mences, nor trace the almost imperceptible shades 
it passes through, until it settles down into a deeper 
crimson than was ever woven into those richly-dyed 
curtains, which the hand of Evening draws across 
the sky, when the sun has descended into his golden 
chamber beneath the ocean. Around the stems of 
the Acacias gracefully twined every variety of the 
Sweet, and Everlasting Pea, while their fragrant 
flowers of white, and red, and purple, showed like 
thousands of winged butterflies, which had alighted 
amidst those emerald leaves and curled tendrils, as 
if to rest awhile, before they sallied forth to visit the 
green and flowery valleys, which slept in the sun¬ 
shine on every hand. Whichever way Love turned 
his eye, to where the greensward spread, or the up- 
