est Ameneman believes, to gain her love; for a youth might be
far less handsome and agreeable than Bartja, and yet take the heart of
an innocent girl, still half a child. But her passionate feeling is so
strong, and the change in her whole being so great, that sometimes I too
am tempted to believe in the use of supernatural influence. A short time
before you left I noticed that Tachot was fond of Bartja. Her distress
at first we thought could only be for you, but when she sank into that
dreamy state, Ibykus, who was still at our court, said she must have
been seized by some strong passion.

"Once when she was sitting dreaming at her wheel, I heard him singing
softly Sappho's little love-song to her:

"I cannot, my sweet mother,
Throw shuttle any more;
My heart is full of longing,
My spirit troubled sore,
All for a love of yesterday
A boy not seen before."

[Sappho ed. Neue XXXII. Translation from Edwin Arnold's
Poets of Greece.]

"She turned pale and asked him: 'Is that your own song?'

"'No,' said he, 'Sappho wrote it fifty years ago.'

"'Fifty years ago,' echoed Tachot musingly.

"'Love is always the same,' interrupted the poet; 'women loved centuries
ago, and will love thousands of years to come, just as Sappho loved
fifty years back.'

"The sick girl smiled in assent, and from that time I often heard
her humming the little song as she sat at her wheel. But we carefully
avoided every question, that could remind her of him she loved. In the
delirium of fever, however, Bartja's name was always on her burning
lips. When she recovered consciousness we told her what she had said in
her delirium; then she opened her heart to me, and raising her eyes to
heaven like a prophetess, exclaimed solemnly: 'I know, that I shall not
die till I have seen him again.'

"A short time ago we had her carried into the temple, as she longed to
worship there again. When the service was over and we were crossing
the temple-court, we passed some children at play, and Tachot noticed a
little girl telling something very eagerly to her companions. She told
the bearers to put down the litter and call the child to her.

"'What were you saying?' she asked the little one.

"I was telling the others something about my eldest sister.'

"'May I hear it too?'" said Tachot so kindly, that the little girl began
at once without fear: "Batau, who is betrothed to my si