"You will no longer need the lad for that purpose; Leonax, Alciphron's
son, is coming to-day. He'll lift and support you as if you were his own
father. The people in Messina are friendly and honor age, for, while you
jeer at me, they remember the old woman, and will send me a beautiful
matron's-robe for the future wedding."

The invalid looked inquiringly at his daughter, and the latter answered,
blushing:

"Semestre has told me. She informed me, while I was cutting the cloth,
that Leonax would come as a suitor."

"May he fare better than Alkamenes and the others, whom you sent home!
You know I will not force your inclinations, but, if I am to lose Mopsus,
I should like a pleasant son. Why has Phaon fallen into such foolish,
evil ways? The young Leonax--"

"Is of a different stamp," interrupted Semestre--"Now come, my dove, I
have a thousand things to do."

"Go," replied Xanthe. "I'll come directly.--You will feel better, father,
if you rest now. Let me help you into the house, and lie down on the
cushion for a time."

The young girl tried to lift her father, but her strength was too feeble
to raise the wearied man. At last, with the conjurer's help, he succeeded
in rising, and the latter whispered earnestly in his ear:

"My hens tell me many things, but another oracle behind my forehead says,
you are on the high-road to recovery, but you won't reach the goal,
unless you treat the old woman, who is limping into the house yonder, as
I do the birds I train."

"And what do you do?"

"Teach them to obey me, and if I see that they assert their own wills,
sell them and seek others."

"You are not indebted to the stupid creatures for anything?"

"But I owe so much the more to the others, who do their duty."

"Quite true, and therefore you feed and keep them."

"Until they begin to grow old and refuse obedience."

"And then?"

"Then I give them to a peasant, on whose land they lay eggs, eat and die.
The right farmer for your hens lives in Agrigentum."

Lysander shrugged his shoulders; and, as, leaning on his daughter, he
tottered slowly forward, almost falling on the threshold, Xanthe took a
silent vow to give him a son on whom he could firmly depend--a stalwart,
reliable man.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TWO SUCKING-PIGS.

Fifteen minutes had passed, and the old house-keeper's face still
glowed--no longer from anger, but because, full of zeal, she now moulded
cakes before the bright flames on the hearth,