in life and a link
with the lower world, the really precious part of which had seemed to
vanish with her vanished husband. Sometimes, as she looked into her
baby's blue eyes, so wonderfully like Bartja's, she thought: Why was
not she born a boy? He would have grown more like his father from day to
day, and at last, if such a thing indeed could ever be, a second Bartja
would have stood before me.

But such thoughts generally ended soon in her pressing the little one
closer than ever to her heart, and blaming herself for ingratitude and
folly.

One day Atossa put the same idea in words, exclaiming: "If Parmys were
only a boy! He would have grown up exactly like his father, and have
been a second Cyrus for Persia." Sappho smiled sadly at her friend, and
covered the little one with kisses, but Kassandane said: "Be thankful
to the gods, my child, for having given you a daughter. If Parmys were
a boy, he would be taken from you as soon as he had reached his sixth
year, to be brought up with the sons of the other Achaemenidae, but your
daughter will remain your own for many years."

Sappho trembled at the mere thought of parting from her child; she
pressed its little fair curly head close to her breast, and never found,
fault with her treasure again for being a girl.

Atossa's friendship was a great comfort to her poor wounded heart. With
her she could speak of Bartja as much and as often as she would, and was
always certain of a kind and sympathizing listener. Atossa had loved
her vanished brother very dearly. And even a stranger would have enjoyed
hearing Sappho tell of her past happiness. Her words rose into real
eloquence in speaking of those bright days; she seemed like an inspired
poetess. Then she would take her lyre, and with her clear, sweet,
plaintive voice sing the love-songs of the elder Sappho, in which all
her own deepest feelings were so truly expressed, and fancy herself
once more with her lover sitting under the sweet-scented acanthus in the
quiet night, and forget the sad reality of her present life. And when,
with a deep sigh, she laid aside the lyre and came back out of this
dream-kingdom, the tears were always to be seen in Kassandane's eyes,
though she did not understand the language in which Sappho had been
singing, and Atossa would bend down and kiss her forehead.

Thus three long years had passed, during which Sappho had seldom seen
her grandmother, for, as the mother of Parmys, she was by the kin