siah whispered to me "to know if it wuz Minerva Slimpsey,
Simon's oldest sister."

And I sez, "No, this Minerva, from what I've hearn of her, knew more
than the hull Slimpsey family," sez I. "She wuz noted for her wisdom
and knowledge, and I spoze," sez I, "that she wuz the daughter of
Jupiter."

Josiah said Jupiter wuz nobody he ever see, though he wuz familiar
with his name. And I'd hearn on him too when Josiah smashed his
finger or slipped up on the ice or anything, not that I wanted to in
that tone. Arvilly thought mebby she could canvass the royal family
or some on 'em, and Tommy wuz willin' to go to any new place, and I
spoze Carabi wuz too. And I said I wanted to stand on Mars' Hill,
where Paul preached to the people about idolatry and their
worship of the Unknown God. As we sailed along the shores Dorothy
spoke of Sapho. Poor creeter! I wuz always sorry for her. You know
she wuz disappointed, and bein' love-sick and discouraged she writ
some poetry and drownded herself some time ago.

And Robert Strong talked a good deal to Dorothy about Plato and Homer
and Xenophon and Euripides, Sophocles, Phidias, and Socrates--and lots
more of them old worthies; folks, Josiah remarked to me, that had
never lived anywhere round Jonesville way, he knew by the names. And
Dorothy quoted some poetry beginning:

"The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece."

And Robert quoted some poetry. I know two lines of it run:

"Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, O, give me back my heart."

But his eyes wuzn't on Athens at all. They wuz on Dorothy, and her
face flushed up as rosy a pink as ever Miss Sapho's did when she wuz
keepin' company.

After we left the boat we rode over a level plain with green trees by
the wayside till we reached Athens and put up at a good tarven.
Athens, "The eye of Greece," mother of arts and eloquence, wuz built
in the first place round the Acropolis, a hill about three hundred
feet high, and is a place that has seen twice as many ups and downs as
Jonesville. But then it's older, three or four thousand years older, I
spoze, and has had a dretful time on't since Mr. Theseus's day, take
it with its archons or rulers, kings and generals, and Turks, Goths
and Franks, etc.

But it become the fountainhead of learning and civilization, culture
and education of the mind and the body. In that age of health and
beauty, study and exercise, the wimmen didn't wear any cossets,
consequently they could br