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hearts, you know, are wonderfully made; they're like the sun who sends
his rays everywhere, and loses neither warmth nor light by giving much,
but gives to all their due. I loved those little ones so very much. One
evening we were sitting quite alone with Theopompus in the women's room,
when suddenly we heard aloud, wild noise. The good old Knakias, our
faithful slave, just reached the door as all the bolts gave way, and,
rushing through the entrance-hall into the peristyle, the andronitis, and
so on to us, crashing the door between, came a troop of soldiers.
Grandmother showed them the letter by which Amasis secured our house from
all attack and made it a sure refuge, but they laughed the writing to
scorn and showed us on their side a document with the crown-prince's
seal, in which we were sternly commanded to deliver up Phanes' children
at once to this rough troop of men. Theopompus reproved the soldiers for
their roughness, telling them that the children came from Corinth and had
no connection with Phanes; but the captain of the troop defied and
sneered at him, pushed my grandmother rudely away, forced his way into
her own apartment, where among her most precious treasures, at the head
of her own bed, the two children lay sleeping peacefully, dragged them
out of their little beds and took them in an open boat through the cold
night-air to the royal city. In a few days we heard the boy was dead.
They say he has been killed by Psamtik's orders; and the little girl, so
sweet and dear, is lying in a dismal dungeon, and pining for her father
and for us. Oh, dearest, isn't it a painful thing that sorrows such as
these should come to mar our perfect happiness? My eyes weep joy and
sorrow in the same moment, and my lips, which have just been laughing
with you, have now to tell you this sad story."

"I feel your pain with you, my child, but it makes my hand clench with
rage instead of filling my eyes with tears. That gentle boy whom you
loved, that little girl who now sits weeping in the dark dungeon, shall
both be revenged. Trust me; before the Nile has risen again, a powerful
army will have entered Egypt, to demand satisfaction for this murder."

"Oh, dearest, how your eyes are glowing! I never saw you look so
beautiful before. Yes, yes, the boy must be avenged, and none but you
must be his avenger."

"My gentle Sappho is becoming warlike too."

"Yes, women must feel warlike when wickedness is so triumphant; women
re