tory. "Nevertheless thou wast happy to find
such a master--happier far than I, who am still a vagabond and a
wanderer in my old age."

The Meeting of Telemachus and Odysseus

I

Early next day Eumaeus and Odysseus were preparing their morning meal,
when they heard the sound of footsteps approaching the hut. The hounds
pricked up their ears at the sound, and ran fawning round the
new-comer, who was evidently well known to them. Odysseus called to
Eumaeus, who was busy drawing wine, and said: "Some friend of thine is
coming; for the dogs fawn upon him, and bark not."

Even as he spoke, a tall figure appeared in the open doorway, and his
own dear son stood before him. Eumaeus sprang up amazed, and let fall
the pitcher into which he had been drawing the wine. Then with a cry
of joy he ran to greet his young lord, kissed his hands and his face,
and wept over him. Even as a father yearns over his only son, just
returned from abroad after a ten years' absence, so Eumaeus yearned
over Telemachus, and hailed him as one returned from the dead. "Thou
art come, Telemachus," he faltered at last, when his emotion suffered
him to speak, "thou art come back again, dear as mine own life! Ne'er
thought I to see thee again, after thou wast gone to Pylos. Sit thee
down, that I may feast mine eyes upon thee; seldom dost thou come this
way, but abidest in the house, to watch the wasteful deeds of the
wooers."

Odysseus, in his character of beggar, rose respectfully from his seat,
to make room for the young prince, but Telemachus motioned him to
resume his place, and sat down himself on a heap of brushwood, on
which the swineherd had spread a fleece. While Eumaeus was bringing
bread and meat, and filling the cups with wine, Telemachus questioned
him as to his mother, and learnt that no change had occurred in her
relation to the wooers since he left Ithaca. Breakfast being over,
Eumaeus, in answer to his inquiry, told him the story of the supposed
stranger. "I have done what I could for him," he added, when he had
repeated what he had heard from Odysseus. "Now I deliver him unto
thee, to do with him as thou wilt; all his hopes are in thy grace."

"What can I do?" answered Telemachus, in perplexity. "Thou knowest
that I am not master in my own house, and my mother is torn between
two purposes: whether to wait still in patience for her lord's coming,
or to choose a new husband from the noblest of the suitors. Neither
she nor I ca