" "'Twas not of a ghost I was thinking," I said, recovering my wits a little under the magic of her voice, which I thought the sweetest I had ever heard, "but of the three Graces, and methought I saw a fourth.

It is no easy matter to find this magic plant, but, according to a piece of popular folk-lore, it is obtained by means of the woodpecker.

As far back as the time of Pliny, we have directions for the gathering of this magic plant.

Another plant which had to be gathered with special formalities was the magic mandragora.

The "receipt," so called, was the formula of magic words to be employed during the process.

Francis Lenormant, in his "Chaldean Magic," mentions the divining-rods used by the Magi, wherewith they foretold the future by throwing little sticks of tamarisk-wood, and adds that divination by wands was known and practised in Babylon, "and that this was even the most ancient mode of divination used in the time of the Accadians."

Among the Hindus, even in the Vedic period, magic wands were in use, and the practice still survives in China, where the peach-tree is in demand.

The literature, too, of the past is rich in allusions to this piece of superstition, and Swift in his "Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician's Rod" (1710) thus refers to it: "They tell us something strange and odd About a certain magic rod That, bending down its top, divines Whene'er

In 1659, the Jesuit, Gaspard Schott, tells us that this magic rod was at this period used in every town in Germany, and that he had frequently had opportunities of seeing it used in the discovery of hidden treasure.

Plants of this kind remind us of the magic "sesame" which, at the command of Ali Baba, in the story of the "Forty Thieves," gave him immediate admission to the secret treasure-cave.

This seemingly wonderful event, which, as Ganimed was the lady Rosalind, he could so easily perform, he pretended he would bring to pass by the aid of magic, which he said he had learnt of an uncle who was a famous magician.

" Ganimed and Aliena then went out together, and Ganimed throwing off his male attire, and being once more dressed in woman's apparel, quickly became Rosalind without the power of magic; and Aliena, changing her country garb for her own rich clothes, was with as little trouble transformed into the lady Celia.

They had no time to wonder how all this would end, for Rosalind and Celia in their own clothes entered; and no longer pretending that it was by the power of magic that she came there, Rosalind threw herself on her knees before her father, and begged his blessing.

It seemed so wonderful to all present that she should so suddenly appear, that it might well have passed for magic; but Rosalind would no longer trifle with her father, and told him the story of her banishment, and of her dwelling in the forest as a shepherd-boy, her cousin Celia passing as her sister.

Very dear to Hiawatha Was the gentle Chibiabos, He the best of all musicians, He the sweetest of all singers; For his gentleness he loved him, And the magic of his singing.

Thus the Birch Canoe was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; And the forest's life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, All the lightness of the birch-tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews; And it floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, Like a yellow water-lily.

Some one, somewhere, gave a signal, and the roomful was seated as if by magic.

Betty thrilled to the magic of that modulated voice, low and yet clear enough to be heard in every corner of the large room.

Must I lay to the philter's magic this audacious notion; that the face of Little Miss had tangibly come to me in some night of the mind?

Soon he will look for some white face beneath the strange sun helmet the English wear, up will go his hands, and "Kamerad"that magic wordwill open the doors to sumptuous ease behind the prison bars.

In the solitude of their homeward trek their courage had oozed out; they feared the magic, and fortunately had not touched the poisoned provisions.

Magic or the fear of it had saved the situation; but the instincts of loyalty had been fired previously by a character that had many attractive features and never allowed firmness to dispossess justice.

"You don't need to tell me," went on the doctor, "because I know!" "How d'ye know?" "Magic.

His tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music.

Shakespeare merely touches such a scene with the magic of his genius, and his Cæsar speaks: Let me have men about me that are fat: Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.