n.
When completed, it was a sweet rural bower, roofed overhead with an arch
of living boughs. Inside there were two pleasant rooms, one of which
had a soft heap of moss for a bed, while the other was furnished with
a rustic seat or two, curiously fashioned out of the crooked roots of
trees. So comfortable and home-like did it seem, that Telephassa and her
three companions could not help sighing, to think that they must still
roam about the world, instead of spending the remainder of their lives
in some such cheerful abode as they had here built for Phoenix. But,
when they bade him farewell, Phoenix shed tears, and probably regretted
that he was no longer to keep them company.

However, he had fixed upon an admirable place to dwell in. And by and by
there came other people, who chanced to have no homes; and, seeing how
pleasant a spot it was, they built themselves huts in the neighborhood
of Phoenix's habitation. Thus, before many years went by, a city had
grown up there, in the center of which was seen a stately palace of
marble, wherein dwelt Phoenix, clothed in a purple robe, and wearing a
golden crown upon his head. For the inhabitants of the new city, finding
that he had royal blood in his veins, had chosen him to be their king.
The very first decree of state which King Phoenix issued was, that, if a
maiden happened to arrive in the kingdom, mounted on a snow-white bull,
and calling herself Europa, his subjects should treat her with the
greatest kindness and respect, and immediately bring her to the palace.
You may see, by this, that Phoenix's conscience never quite ceased to
trouble him, for giving up the quest of his dear sister, and sitting
himself down to be comfortable, while his mother and her companions went
onward.

But often and often, at the close of a weary day's journey, did
Telephassa and Cadmus, Cilix, and Thasus, remember the pleasant spot
in which they had left Phoenix. It was a sorrowful prospect for these
wanderers, that on the morrow they must again set forth, and that, after
many nightfalls, they would perhaps be no nearer the close of their
toilsome pilgrimage than now. These thoughts made them all melancholy at
times, but appeared to torment Cilix more than the rest of the party. At
length, one morning, when they were taking their staffs in hand to set
out, he thus addressed them:

"My dear mother, and you, good brother Cadmus, and my friend Thasus,
methinks we are like people in a dream. Th