and
touches the citadel's red bulk with unearthly brightness; a soul when the
day falls to sleep in the arms of night as Helios sinks over the western
hill by Daphni. Then the Rock seems to throb and burn with life again.

It is so bare that the hungry goats can hardly crop one spear of grass
along its jagged slopes. It is so steep it scarce needs defence against an
army. It is so commanding that he who stands on the westmost pinnacle can
look across the windy hill of the Pnyx, across the brown plain-land and
down to the sparkling blue sea with the busy havens of Peiraeus and
Phalerum, the scattered gray isles of the AEgean, and far away to the
domelike crest of Acro-Corinthus. Let him turn to the right: below him
nestles the gnarled hill of Areopagus, home of the Furies, the buzzing
plaza of the Agora, the closely clustered city. Behind, there spread
mountain, valley, plain,--here green, here brown, here golden,--with
Pentelicus the Mighty rearing behind all, his summits fretted white, not
with winter snows, but with lustrous marble. Look to the left: across the
view passes the shaggy ridge of Hymettus, arid and scarred, as if wrought
by the Titans, home only of goats and bees, of nymphs and satyrs.

That was almost the self-same vision in the dim past when the first savage
clambered this "Citadel of Cecrops" and spoke, "Here is my
dwelling-place." This will be the vision until earth and ocean are no
more. The human habitation changes, the temples rise and crumble; the red
and gray rock, the crystalline air, the sapphire sea, come from the god,
and these remain.

Glaucon and Hermione were come together to offer thanks to Athena for the
glory of the Isthmus. The athlete had already mounted the citadel heading
a myrtle-crowned procession to bear a formal thanksgiving, but his wife
had not then been with him. Now they would go together, without pomp. They
walked side by side. Nimble Chloe tripped behind with her mistress's
parasol. Old Manes bore the bloodless sacrifice, but Hermione said in her
heart there came two too many.

Many a friendly eye, many a friendly word, followed as they crossed the
Agora, where traffic was in its morning bustle. Glaucon answered every
greeting with his winsome smile.

"All Athens seems our friend!" he said, as close by the Tyrannicides'
statues at the upper end of the plaza a grave councilman bowed and an old
bread woman left her stall to bob a courtesy.

"Is _your_ friend," corr