ings and not
needlework. Well, man is a wonderful creature! And look, look, how
charming he lies there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on his
cheeks, that beloved Adonis--Adonis, whom one loves, even though he is
dead!

Another Stranger. You wretched woman, do stop your incessant chatter.
Like turtles, you go on forever. They are enough to kill one with their
broad lingo--nothing but a, a, a.

G. Lord, where does the man come from? What is it to you if we are
chatterboxes? Order about your own servants. Do you give orders to
Syracusan women? If you want to know, we came originally from Corinth,
as Bellerophon did; we speak Peloponnesian. I suppose Dorian women may
be allowed to have a Dorian accent.

P. Oh, honey-sweet Proserpine, let us have no more masters than the one
we've got! We don't the least care for you; pray don't trouble yourself
for nothing.

G. Be quiet, Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman's
daughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. She is the same who was
chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something first
rate from her. She is going through her airs and graces ready to begin.

* * * * *

And here the voices die away in the remote past. How difficult it is to
believe that this dialogue took place more than two thousand years ago!

As a last glimpse of such a beautiful, modernly remote gem of
conversation, we will give a few more words to show what those ancient
gossipy ladies thought of their husbands.

The following are the last surviving words which Gorgo gave to the
world:

Gorgo. Praxinoe, certainly women are wonderful things. That lucky woman,
to know all that; and luckier still to have such a voice! And now we
must see about getting home. My husband has not had his dinner. That man
is all vinegar, and nothing else; and if you keep him waiting for his
dinner he's dangerous to go near. Adieu! precious Adonis, and may you
find us all well when you come next year!

He might have been a husband of yesterday!

For how many years have the husbands been coming home from work daily to
partake of a meal which an attentive and tender wife has prepared for
him? This was twenty-two hundred years ago.

Of the White Woman Who Became an Indian Squaw

The early history of the northwest frontier of Massachusetts is fraught
with blood-curdling tales of savage invasions against the home-builders
and empire-makers of