r! You would give your last copper piece to
hear her again."

"Indeed!" muttered his father. "Well, there are very good teachers here.
Something by Linus did you say she sang?"

"Something of that kind; a lament for the dead of very great power:
'Return, oh! return my beloved, came back--come home!' that was the
burthen of it. And there was a passage which said: 'Oh that each tear had
a voice and could join with me in calling thee!" And how she sang it,
father! I do not think I ever in my life heard anything like it. Ask
mother. Even Dada's eyes were full of tears."

"Yes, it was beautiful," the mother agreed. "I could not help wishing
that you were there."

Karnis rose and paced the little room, waving his arms and muttering:

"Ah! so that is how it is! A friend of the Muses. We saved the large
lute--that is well. My chlamys has an ugly hole in it--if the girls were
not asleep . . . but the first thing to-morrow Ague. . . . Tell me, is
she handsome, tall?"

Herse had been watching her excitable husband with much satisfaction and
now answered his question: "Not a Hera--not a Muse--decidedly not. Hardly
above the middle height, slightly made, but not small, black eyes, long
lashes, dark straight eyebrows. I could hardly, like Orpheus, call her
beautiful. . ."

"Oh yes, mother.--Beautiful is a great word, and one my father has taught
me to use but rarely; but she--if she is not beautiful who is?--when she
raised her large dark eyes and threw back her head to bring out her
lament; tone after tone seemed to come from the bottom of her heart and
rise to the furthest height of heaven. Ah, if Agne could learn to sing
like that! 'Throw your whole soul into your singing.'--You have told her
that again and again. Now, Gorgo can and does. And she stood there as
steady and as highly strung as a bow, every note came out with the ring
of an arrow and went straight to the heart, as clear and pure as
possible."

"Be silent!" cried the old man covering his ears with his hands. "I shall
not close an eye till daylight, and then . . . Orpheus, take that
silver--take it all, I have no more--go early to market and buy
flowers--laurel branches, ivy, violets and roses. But no lotuses though
the market here is full of them; they are showy, boastful things with no
scent, I cannot bear them. We will go crowned to the Temple of the
Muses."

"Buy away, buy all you want!" said Herse laughing, as she showed her
husband some bright gold pi