unwilling to have that happy hour become a source of pain to any one. In
return, she grew deeply attached to me, who can tell whether from mere
gratitude, or because a warmer feeling stirred her strange heart? At that
time she was certainly a pretty, dainty creature, and yet, as truly as I
hope to enjoy the love of my darling wife for many a year, there was
nothing, absolutely nothing, between me and the blue-eyed, dark-haired
wanderer which the confessor might not have witnessed. I myself wonder at
this, because I by no means failed to see the ropedancer's peculiar
changeful charms, and the tempter pointed them out to me zealously
enough. Besides, she has no ordinary nature. She had accomplished really
marvellous feats in her art, until at Augsburg, during the Reichstag,
when in the Emperor's presence, she risked the most daring ventures--"

"Could it be the same person who, before our poor Juliane's eyes, had the
awful fall which frightened the child so terribly?" asked Doctor
Peutinger earnestly.

"The very same," replied Lienhard in a tone of sincere pity; but the
Augsburg doctor continued, sighing:

"With that sudden fright, which thrilled her sensitive nature to its
inmost depths, began the illness of the angel whose rich, loving heart
throbbed so tenderly for you also, Herr Lienhard."

"As mine did for the peerless child," replied the young Councillor with
eager warmth. "While Juliane, who sickened at the sight of the girl
dancing on the edge of the grave, was pointing out to me some pages in
the manuscript of Lucian, which I was to take from you to Herr Wilibald
yonder, the unfortunate performer met with the terrible accident. We
thought that she was killed, but, as if by a miracle, she lived.
Ropedancing, of course, was over forever, as she had lost a foot. This,
we supposed, would tend to her welfare and induce her to lead a regular,
decorous life; but we were mistaken. In spite of her lameness, Kuni's
restless nature drove her back to the highroad. Yet she would have been
at liberty to remain in the convent as a lay sister without taking the
vows."

"My wife, too, had opened our house to her for Juliane's sake," added
Doctor Peutinger. "The sick child could not get the fall which had
frightened her so terribly out of her head. Her compassionate heart was
constantly occupied with the poor girl, and when she urged her mother to
provide for her, she willingly gratified her wish and often inquired
about the sufferer's health. How Juliane rejoiced when she heard that the
bold and skilful dancer's life would be saved! But when, through the
abbess, my wife offered her a situation in our home, the vagabond
disdained what the mother and daughter had planned for her, Heaven knows
how kindly."

"She treated the gift which we--my wife and I--left in the convent for
her in the same way," added Lienhard. "Why did she refuse the aid I
offered no less willingly? Probably because she was too proud to accept
alms from a man from whom her ardent heart vainly desired something
better."

Here Lienhard Groland hesitated, and it sounded like a confession as he
eagerly continued:

"And, gentleman, she often seemed to me well worthy of a man's desire.
Why should I deny it? Within and without the walls of Troy--we have just
heard it--sin is committed, and had not the image of another woman stood
between us, as the Alps rise between Germany and Italy-perhaps--But of
what avail are conjectures? Will you believe that there were hours when I
felt as though I ought to make some atonement to the poor girl?"

"In your place I should have done it long ago, for the benefit of both,"
protested little Doctor Eberbach merrily. "The commands of conscience
should be obeyed, even when, by way of exception, it requires something
pleasant. But how grave you look, sir. No offence! You are one of the
rare specimens of featherless birds endowed with reason, who unite to the
austerity of Cato the amiability of Titus."

"All due honour to Cato," added Wilibald Pirckheimer with a slight bend
of his stately head; "but in my young days we had a better understanding
of the art of reconciling stern duty with indulgent compassion, when
dealing with a beautiful Calypso whom our sternness threatened to wound.
But everything in the good old days was not better than at the present
time, and that you, whom I honour as the most faithful of husbands, may
not misunderstand me, Lienhard: To bend and to succumb are two different
things."

"Succumb!" Sir Hans von Obernitz, the Nuremberg magistrate, here
interposed indignantly. "A Groland, who, moreover, is blessed with a
loyal, lovely wife, succumb to the sparkling eyes of a vagabond wanton!
The Pegnitz would flow up the castle cliff first. I should think we might
have less vulgar subjects to discuss."

"The daring, skilful ropedancer certainly does not belong to the latter,"
Doctor Peutinger eagerly retorted. "Besides, who would not desire to know
how the free, hot-blooded daughter of the highway settled the account
with you, friend Lienhard? Love disdained is said to be the mother of
hatred, and from the days of Potiphar's wife has often caused cruel
vengeance. Had this girl whom Sir Hans holds in such light esteem really
possessed an evil nature, like others of her class--"

"That she does not," Lienhard Groland here warmly interrupted the
Augsburg guest.

"Whatever Kuni may lack, and whatever errors she may have committed, she
is, and will remain a rare creature, even among the few whose lofty
spirit can not be bowed or broken by the deepest calamity. When I met her
here again at The Blue Pike, among the most corrupt vagabonds, ill and
poor, perhaps already the victim of death, I thought it a fitting time to
renew the gift which she had refused. I would gladly do more for the poor
girl, and my wife at home certainly would not be vexed; she, too, is fond
of Kuni, and--I repeat it--this girl has a good, nay, the best nature.
If, instead of among vagabonds, she had been born in a respectable
household--"

Here the young envoy was suddenly interrupted. His table companions also
raised their heads in surprise--a strange noise echoed through the night
air.

Little Doctor Eberbach started up in affright, Hans von Obernitz, the
Nuremberg magistrate, grasped the hilt of his sword, but Doctor Schedel
instantly perceived that the sound which reached his aged ears was
nothing but a violent, long-repressed fit of coughing. He and the other
gentlemen were gazing at the oleander tree whence, before any one
approached it, a groan of pain was heard.

The experienced physician shook his white locks gravely and said:

"Whoever uttered that is near the end of his sufferings."

He made a movement to rise as he spoke; he felt that his help was needed.

But another incident diverted the attention of his companions and
himself.




CHAPTER XI.

Dietel, the waiter, had at last been released from his confinement in the
cellar, and instantly began the search for the thief in the garden with
twofold zeal.

Without considering how long a time had passed since he first tried to
bring the culprit into the clutches of the law, he had resumed the
pursuit where it was interrupted. As a thoughtless child whose bird has
flown from the cage looks into the water jug to find it, he had turned
the light of his lantern upon places where a kitten could not have hidden
itself, and had even been to the meadow on the bank of the Main to seek
Kuni with the widow of the thief Nickel; but here the sacrament was just
being given to the sufferer, and to interrupt such a ceremony would have
been a great crime. His eyes were keen, and the red pinks had gleamed
from the straw on which the dying woman lay in the light of the lantern,
whose long pole the sexton had thrust into the soft earth of the meadow.
Those flowers must have come from the garden of the landlady of The Pike,
and she valued her pinks more than anything else. The ropedancer had
gathered them for the sick woman, and certainly had not stopped at that
one act of theft. How far these vagabonds' impudence went! But he, whose
duty it was to look after the property of The Blue Pike, would spoil
their pleasure in thieving.

The dog Phylax had soon put him on the trail, and before any of the
gentlemen could reach the groaning person Dietel's triumphant shout rang
from behind the oleander:

"Now we've caught the pilferer, and we'll make an example of her!"

His first glance had fallen on the little bunch of pinks in the girl's
hand, and the vein on his forehead swelled with wrath at this damage to
his mistress's favourite flowers.

But when he shook the culprit by the shoulder and, to his surprise, met
with no resistance, he threw the light of the lantern upon her face, and
what he saw there suddenly troubled him, for the girl's lips, chin, and
dress were covered with bright blood, and her head drooped on one side as
if it had lost its support.

This frightened him, and instead of continuing to boast of his success,
he called for help.

The Nuremberg gentlemen soon surrounded Kuni, and Doctor Hartmann Schedel
told the waiter to carry her, with the aid of his assistants, summoned by
his shout, into the house and provide her with a comfortable bed.

Dietel obeyed the command without delay--nay, when he heard the famous
leech whisper to the other gentlemen that the sufferer's life was but a
failing lamp, his feelings were completely transformed. All the charity
in his nature began to stir and grew more zealous as he gazed at Kuni's
face, distorted by pain. The idea of giving up to her his own neat little
room behind the kitchen seemed like a revelation from St. Eoban, his
patron. She should rest in his bed. The wanderer who, a few years ago,
had scattered her gold so readily and joyously for the pleasure of others
certainly would not poison it. Her misery seemed to him a touching proof
of the transitory nature of all earthly things. Poor sufferer! Yet she
ought to find recovery on his couch, if anywhere; for he had surrounded
it with images of the saints, pious maxims, and little relics, bought
chiefly from the venders who frequented the tavern. Among them was a
leather strap from St. Elizabeth's shoe, whose healing power he had
himself tested during an attack of bilious fever.

The burden which he shared with his assistants was a light one, but he
was not to reach his destination without delay--the little bunch of pinks
fell from the hand of the unconscious girl, and Dietel silently picked up
the stolen property which had just roused his wrath to such a degree, and
placed it carefully on the senseless sufferer's bosom.

The second hinderance was more serious. Cyriax had heard that Kuni was
dying, and fearing that he might be obliged to pay the funeral expenses
he stuttered to the bystanders, with passionate gestures, that an hour
ago he had discharged the cripple whom he had dragged about with him, out
of sheer sympathy, long enough. She was nothing more to him now than the
cock in the courtyard, which was crowing to greet the approach of dawn.

But the landlord of The Pike and others soon forced Cyriax out of the
way. Kuni was laid on Dietel's bed, and the gray-haired leech examined
her with the utmost care.

The landlady of The Pike helped to undress her, and when the good woman,
holding her apron to her eyes from which tears were streaming, opened the
door again and the Abbot of St. AEgidius approached the couch, to render
aid to the dying for the second time that night, he saw by Hartmann
Schedel's face that he had not come too soon.

The ropedancer had recovered consciousness, and the kind prelate's
presence was a solace to her. The confession lasted a long time, and the
story which she had to confide to the priest must have been as strange as
it was interesting, for the abbot listened eagerly and with evident
emotion. When he had performed the duties of his office he remained alone
for a time; he could not immediately regain a mood in which he cared to
rejoin the others. He did not ask for the gentlemen from Cologne; those
from Nuremberg, whom he sought, had returned to the table in front of the
tavern long before.

The waves of the Main were now reflecting the golden light of the morning
sun. Dewdrops glittered on the grass and flowers in the meadow with the
cart, and in the landlady's little garden. Carriers' men were harnessing
the freshly groomed bays to the pole. The brass rings on the high collars
of the stallions jingled loudly and merrily, and long whiplashes cracked
over the four and six-horse teams which were beginning the day's journey
along the highroad.

But even the rattling of the carts and the trampling of the horses' hoofs
could not rouse the Cologne professors, who, with their clerical
companions, had gone to rest, and slept in darkened rooms until late into
the morning. Most of the humbler guests had already left their straw
beds.

Cyriax was one of the first who followed the road. He had sold his cart
and donkey, and wanted to burden his red-haired wife with his
possessions, but as she resolutely refused he had taken the bundle on his
own lazy shoulders. Now he dragged himself and his new load onward,
swearing vehemently, for Ratz had remained with the cart in Miltenberg,
where the sham lunatic no longer found it safe to stay. This time it was
he who was obliged to pull his wife along by the chain, for she had long
refused, as if fairly frantic, to desert the dying girl who had nursed
her child so faithfully. Again and again the doubly desolate woman looked
back toward the companion whom she had abandoned in her suffering until
they reached Frankfort. There Gitta left Cyriax and accompanied Ratz. The
cart in which her child had lived and died, not its repulsive owner,
induced her to sever the bond which, for nine years, had bound her to the
blasphemer.

The travelling scholars set off singing merrily; but the strolling
musicians waited for the ship to sail down the Main, on whose voyage they
could earn money and have plenty to drink.

The vagrants tramped along the highway, one after another, without
troubling themselves about the dying ropedancer.

"Everybody finds it hard enough to bear his own cross," said Jungel,
seizing his long crutches. Only "Dancing Gundel" lingered in Miltenberg
through sympathy in the fate of the companion who had reached the height
of fame, while she, the former "Phyllis," had gone swiftly downhill. It
was a Christian duty, she said to the blind boy who begged their bread,
not to let Kuni, who had once held so lofty a position, take the last
journey without a suitable escort. When she heard that her former
companion had received the sacrament, she exclaimed to her blind son,
while slicing garlic into the barley porridge: "She will now be at rest.
We shall earn a pretty penny at the mass in Frankfort if you can only
manage to look as sorrowful when you hold out your hand as you do now!"

The monks, the dealer in indulgences, the burghers and artisans who were
just preparing to embark for the voyage down the Main, gazed in
bewilderment at the distinguished gentlemen who, incredible as it seemed,
had actually--for Dietel said so--foregone their morning nap for the sake
of a vagabond girl. The feather-curler shook his head as if something
marvellous had happened when he heard the ambassador of the Honourable
Council of his own native city, the distinguished Herr Lienhard Groland,
say to old Doctor Schedel:

"I will wait here with you, my venerable friend. Since the poor girl can
live only a few hours longer, I can join the others, if I hurry, before
they leave Frankfort."

"That's right, Lienhard," cried Wilibald Pirckheimer, and the Abbot of
St. AEgidius added approvingly:

"You will thereby do something which is pleasing in the sight of Heaven.
Yes, gentlemen, I repeat it: there are few deathbeds beside which I have
found so little reason to be ashamed of the fate of being a mortal as by
the humble couch of this vagabond girl. If, before the judgment seat
above, intention and faith are weighed with the same scales as works, few
who close their eyes behind silken curtains will be so sure of a
favourable sentence as this poorest of the poor."

"Did the girl really keep no portion of Herr Lienhard's rich gift for
herself?" asked the Nuremberg imperial magistrate.

"Nothing," replied the abbot. "She gave the whole, down to her last
copper, to the stranger, though she herself must remain here, poor, lame,
and deserted--and she had only met the sick woman by accident upon the
highway. My duty forbids me to repeat the details, and how she bore
herself even while at Augsburg, but, thanks to the confession which I
have just received, I shall count this morning among those never to be
forgotten. O gentlemen, death is a serious matter, and intercourse with
the dying is the best school for the priest. Then the inmost depths of
the soul are opened to him."

"And," observed Wilibald Pirckheimer, "I think the psychologist would
then learn that, the deeper we penetrate the human breast, the darker is
the spectacle."

"Yes, my learned friend," the abbot answered, "but we also perceive that
the deepest and darkest shafts contain the purest specimens of gold and
silver ore."

"And were you really permitted to find such in this neglected vagabond,
reverend sir?" asked Doctor Eberbach, with an incredulous smile.

"As certainly," answered the prelate with repellent dignity, "as that the
Saviour was right when he called those who were pure in heart blessed
above those who were wise and overflowing with knowledge!"

Then, without waiting for the Thuringian's answer, he hastily turned to
the young ambassador and begged him to grant the dying girl, who clung to
him with tender devotion, a brief farewell.

"Willingly," replied Lienhard, requesting the physician to accompany him.

The latter had just beckoned Doctor Peutinger to his side, to examine
with him the indulgence which he had found under the kerchief crossed
over the sick girl's bosom. It did not secure redemption from the flames
of purgatory for the ropedancer's soul, as the gentlemen expected, but
for another, and that other--the learned humanist and Imperial Councillor
would not believe his own eyes--was his beloved, prematurely lost child.
There, in large letters, was "Juliane Peutinger of Augsburg."

Astonished, almost bewildered, the usually quiet statesman expressed his
amazement.

The other gentlemen were preparing to examine the paper with him, when
the abbot, without betraying the secret of Kuni's heart, which she had
confided to him in her confession, told Juliane's father that the
ropedancer had scarcely left the convent ere she gave up both the
Emperor's gift and the viaticum--in short, her whole property, which
would have been large enough to support her a long time--in order to do
what she could for the salvation of the child for whom her soul was more
concerned than for her own welfare.

The astonished father's eyes filled with tears of grateful emotion, and
when Lienhard went with the gray-haired leech to the dying girl Doctor
Peutinger begged permission to accompany them. The physician, however,
requested him to remain away from the sufferer, who would be disturbed by
the sight of a strange face. Then Peutinger charged his young friend to
give Kuni his kind greetings and thank her for the love with which she
had remembered his dear child.

The young Councillor silently followed the physician to the sick bed, at
whose head leaned a Gray Sister, who was one of the guests of The Blue
Pike and had volunteered to nurse the patient.

The nun shook her head sorrowfully as the two men crossed the threshold.
She knew how the dying look, and that the hand of death already touched
this sufferer. Yet her kind, colourless face, framed by the white sides
of her cap, quickly regained its usual quiet, placid expression.

The regular features, now slightly flushed with the fever, of the patient
in her charge, on the contrary, were constantly varying in expression.
She had noticed the entrance of the visitors, and when she opened her
sparkling blue eyes and saw the person to whom her poor heart clung with
insatiable yearning they were filled with a sunny radiance, and a smile
hovered round her lips.

She had known that he would come, that he would not let her die without
granting her one more glance.

Now she would fain have nodded to him and expressed in very, very
appropriate words the delight, the embarrassment, the gratitude which
filled her soul, but her panting chest could give no breath for
utterance. Nay, extreme exhaustion even prevented the movement of her
lips. But her heart and brain were by no means inactive. A wealth of
internal and external experiences, long since forgotten, rose before her
mind. First she fancied that she saw Lienhard, as at their first meeting,
approaching the garlanded door of St. Sebald's with his beautiful bride,
arrayed in her wedding robes. Then she was transported to the court room
and felt his hand stroke her hair. The hours at Frau Schurstab's when she
had awaited his visits with an anxious heart came back to her memory.
Then she again saw herself upon the rope. Lienhard was toying with the
little elf below. But what she beheld this time was far from awakening
new wicked wishes, for Juliane once more wore her laurel crown and
beckoned kindly to her like a dear, familiar friend. Finally, pale little
Juli appeared, as if shrouded in mists. Last of all, she saw herself
filling the jug for the sick woman and gathering the red pinks for her
and Lienhard in the landlady's little garden by the shimmering starlight.
The flowers, whose fragrance was too strong, yet which she had not the
strength to remove, lay on the coverlet before her. They were intended
for Lienhard, and as she stretched her slender fingers toward them and
tried to clasp them she succeeded. She even found strength to hold out
her right hand to him with a beseeching glance. And lo! ere her arm fell
again the proud man had seized the flowers. Then she saw him fasten the
pinks on the breast of his dark doublet, and heard the thrill of deep
emotion in his voice, as he said:

"I thank you, dear Kuni, for the beautiful flowers. I will keep them.
Your life was a hard one, but you have borne the burden bravely. I saw
this clearly, and not I alone. I am also to thank you and give you very
friendly remembrances in the name of Doctor Peutinger, of Augsburg,
little Juliane's father. He will think of you as a mistress of your art,
a noble, high-minded girl, and I--I shall certainly do so."

He clasped her burning hand as he spoke; but at these words she felt as
she had probably done a few hours before, when, hidden behind the
oleander, she listened to the conversation in which he mentioned her
kindly. Again a warm wave of joy seemed to surge upward in her breast,
and she fancied that her heart was much too small for such a wealth of
rapture, and it was already overflowing in hot waves, washing all grief
far, far away.

Her gift had been accepted.

The red pinks looked at her from his doublet, and she imagined that
everything around was steeped in rosy light, and that a musical tinkling
and singing echoed in her ears.

Never had she experienced such a feeling of happiness.

Now she even succeeded in moving her lips, and the man, who still held
her little burning hand clasped in his first heard his own name very
faintly uttered; then her parched lips almost inaudibly repeated the
exclamation: "Too late!" and again, "Too late!"

The next instant she pressed her left hand upon her panting breast. The
rosy hue around her blended with the red tint of the pinks, and another
haemorrhage bore the restless wanderer to that goal where every mortal
journey ends.



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Repeated the exclamation: "Too late!" and again, "Too late!



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE "IN THE BLUE PIKE":

Arrogant wave of the hand, and in an instructive tone
Buy indugence for sins to be committed in the future
Honest anger affords a certain degree of enjoyment
Mirrors were not allowed in the convent
Ovid, 'We praise the ancients'
Pays better to provide for people's bodies than for their brains
Repeated the exclamation: "Too late!" and again, "Too late!
Who watches for his neighbour's faults has a hundred sharp eyes
Who gives great gifts, expects great gifts again




A QUESTION

By Georg Ebers

Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
PRELUDE.

In the Art-Palace on green Isar's strand,
Before one picture long I kept my seat,
It held me spellbound by some magic band,
Nor when my home I sought, could I forget.

A year elapsed, came winter's frost and snow,
'Twas rarely now we saw the bright sun shine,
I plucked up courage and cried: "Be it so!"
Then southward wandered with those I call mine.

Like birds of passage built we there a nest
On a palm-shaded shore, all steeped in light,
Life was a holiday, enjoyed with zest
And grateful hearts, the while it winged its flight.

Oft on the sea's wide purplish-blue expanse,
With ever new delight I fixed my eyes,
Alma Tadema's picture, at each glance
Recalled to mind, a thousand times would rise.

Once a day dawned, glad as a bride's fair face,
Perfume, and light, and joy it did enfold,
Then-without search, flitted from out of space
Words for the tale that my friend's picture told.
A QUESTION




CHAPTER I.

THE HOUSE-KEEPER AND THE STEWARD.

"Salt sea-water or oil, it's all the same to you! Haven't I put my lamp
out long ago? Doesn't the fire on the hearth give light enough? Are your
eyes so drowsy that they don't see the dawn shining in upon us more and
more brightly? The olives are not yet pressed, and the old oil is getting
toward the dregs. Besides, you know how much fruit those abominable
thieves have stolen. But sparrows will carry grain into the barn before
you'll try to save your master's property!"

So Semestre, the ancient house-keeper of Lysander of Syracuse, scolded
the two maids, Chloris and Dorippe, who, unheeding the smoking wicks of
their lamps, were wearily turning the hand-mills.

Dorippe, the younger of the two, grasped her disordered black tresses,
over which thousands of rebellious little hairs seemed to weave a veil of
mist, drew from the mass of curls falling on her neck a bronze arrow,
with which she extinguished the feeble light of both lamps, and, turning
to the house-keeper, said:

"There, then! We can't yet tell a black thread from a white one, and I
must put out the lamps, as if this rich house were a beggar's hut. Two
hundred jars of shining oil were standing in the storehouses a week ago.
Why did the master let them be put on the ship and taken to Messina by
his brother and Mopsus?"

"And why isn't the fruit gathered yet?" asked Chloris. "The olives are
overripe, and the thieves have an easy task, now the watchmen have gone
to Messina as rowers. We must save by drops, while we own more gnarled
olive-trees than there are days in the year. How many jars of oil might
be had from the fruit that has dropped on the ground alone! The harvest
at neighbor Protarch's was over long ago, and if I were like Lysander--"

"There would probably be an end of saving," cried the house-keeper,
interrupting the girl. "Well, I confess it wasn't easy for me to part
with the golden gift of the gods, but what could I do? Our master's
brother, Alciphron, wanted it, and there was a great barter. Alciphron is
clever, and has a lucky hand, in which the liquid gold we press from the
olives with so much toil, and keep so carefully, becomes coined metal.
He's like my own child, for I was his nurse. Here in the country we
increase our riches by care, patience and frugality, while the city
merchant must have farseeing eyes, and know how to act speedily. Even
when a boy, my Alciphron was the wisest of Dionysius's three sons, and,
if there was anything sweet to be divided, always knew how to get the
largest share. When his mother was alive, she once told the lad to give
her the best of some freshly-baked cakes, that she might take it to the
temple for an offering, and what was his answer? 'It will be well for me
to taste them all, that I may be certain not to make a mistake;' and when
Clytemnestra--"

"Is Alciphron younger than our poor master?" interrupted Dorippe.

"They were sesame cakes with honey," replied the house-keeper, whose
hearing was impaired by age, and who therefore frequently misunderstood
words uttered in a low tone. "Is the linen ready for the wash?"

"I didn't ask about the cakes," replied Dorippe, exchanging a mischievous
glance with Chloris; "I only wanted to know--"

"You girls are deaf; I've noticed it a long time," interrupted the
house-keeper. "You've grown hard of hearing, and I know why. Hundreds of
times I've forbidden you to throw yourselves on the dewy grass in the
evening, when you were heated by dancing. How often I get absurd answers,
when I ask you anything!"

The girls both laughed merrily.

The higher voice of one mingled harmoniously with the deeper tones of her
companion, and two pairs of dark eyes again met, full of joyous mirth,
for they well knew who was deaf, and who had quicker hearing than even
the nightingale, which, perched on the green fig-tree outside, was
exultingly hailing the sunrise, now with a clear, flute-like warble, now
with notes of melancholy longing.

The house-keeper looked with mingled astonishment and anger at the two
laughing girls, then clapped her hands loudly, exclaiming:

"To work, wenches! You, Chloris, prepare the morning meal; and you,
Dorippe, see if the master wants anything, and bring fresh wood for the
fire. Stop your silly giggling, for laughing before sunrise causes tears
at evening. I suppose the jests of the vineyard watchmen are still
lingering in your heads. Now go, and don't touch food till you've
arranged your hair."

The girls, nudging each other, left the women's apartment, into which the
dawn was now shining more brightly through the open roof.

It was a stately room, surrounded by marble columns, which bore witness
to the owner's wealth, for the floor was beautifully adorned with
bright-hued pictures, mosaic work executed in colored stones by an artist
from Syracuse. They represented the young god Dionysius, the Hyades
surrounding him, and in colored groups all the gifts of the divinities
who watch over fields and gardens, as well as those of the Nysian god.
Each individual design, as well as the whole picture, was inclosed in a
framework of delicate lines. The hearth, over which Semestre now bent, to
fan the glimmering embers with a goose-wing, was made of yellow marble.

Dorippe now returned, curtly said that the master wanted to be helped
into the open air, when the sun was higher, and brought, as she had been
ordered, a fresh supply of gnarled olive-branches, and pinecones, which,
kindling rapidly, coaxed the wood to unite its blaze with theirs.

Glittering sparks flew upward from the crackling branches toward the open
roof, and with them a column of warm smoke rose straight into the pure,
cool morning air; but as the door of the women's apartment now opened,
the draught swept the gray, floating pillar sideways, directly toward
Semestre, who was fanning the flames with her goose-wing.

Coughing violently, she wiped her eyes with the edge of her blue peplum,
and glanced angrily at the unbidden guest who ventured to enter the
women's apartment at this hour.

As soon as she recognized the visitor she nodded pleasantly, though with
a certain touch of condescension, and rose from her stool, but instantly
dropped back on it again, instead of going forward to meet the new-comer.
Then she planted herself still more firmly on her seat, and, instead of
uttering a friendly greeting, coughed and muttered a few unintelligible
words.

"Give me a little corner by your fire, it's a cold morning," cried the
old man in a deep voice. "Helios freezes his people before he comes, that
they may be doubly grateful for the warmth he bestows."

"You are right," replied Semestre, who had only understood a few of the
old man's words; "people ought to be grateful for a warm fire; but why,
at your age, do you go out so early, dressed only in your chiton, without
cloak or sandals, at a season when the buds have scarcely opened on the
trees. You people yonder are different from others in many respects, but
you ought not to go without a hat, Jason; your hair is as white as mine."

"And wholly gone from the crown," replied the old man, laughing. "It's
more faithful to you women; I suppose out of gratitude for the better
care you bestow. I need neither hat, cloak, nor sandals! An old
countryman doesn't fear the morning chill. When a boy, I was as white as
your master's little daughter, the fair-faced Xanthe, but now head, neck,
arms, legs, every part of me not covered by the woolen chiton, is brown
as a wine-skin before it's hung up in the smoke, and the dark hue is like
a protecting garment, nay better, for it helps me bear not only cold, but
heat. There's nothing white about me now, except the beard on my chin,
the scanty hair on my head, and, thank the gods, these two rows of sound
teeth."

Jason, as he spoke, passed his hard, brown finger over the upper and then
the under row of his teeth; but the housekeeper, puckering her mouth in
the attempt to hide many a blemish behind her own lips, answered:

"Your teeth are as faithful to you as our hair is to us, for men know how
to use them more stoutly than women. Now show what you can do. We have a
nice curd porridge, seasoned with thyme, and some dried lamb for
breakfast. If the girl hurries, you needn't wait long. Every guest, even
the least friendly, is welcome to our house."

"I didn't come here to eat," replied the old man; "I've had my breakfast.
There's something on my mind I would like to discuss with the clever
house-keeper, nay, I ought to say the mistress of this house, and
faithful guardian of its only daughter."

Semestre turned her wrinkled face towards the old man, opened her eyes to
their widest extent, and then called eagerly to Dorippe, who was busied
about the hearth, "We want to be alone!"

The girl walked slowly toward the door, and tried to conceal herself
behind the projecting pillars to listen, but Semestre saw her, rose from
her seat, and drove her out of doors with her myrtle-staff, exclaiming:

"Let no one come in till I call. Even Xanthe must not interrupt us."

"You won't stay alone, for Aphrodite and all the Loves will soon join
such a pair," cried the girl, as she sprang across the threshold, banging
the door loudly behind her.

"What did she say?" asked Semestre, looking suspiciously after the