the cloak with her own hands, and that, she
cried, was the way her labor was valued! There was plenty of cloth in
the chests, which Lysander could divide among the buffoons at the next
fair in Syracuse. In other countries, even among wild barbarians, white
hairs were honored, but here the elders taught the young people to
insult them with jeers and mockery.

At these words the invalid's face turned pale, a dark shadow appeared
under his eyes, and an expression of pain hovered around his mouth. He
looked utterly exhausted.

Every feature betrayed how the old woman's shrill voice and passionate
words disturbed him, but he could not silence her by loud rebukes, for
his voice failed, and he therefore sought to make peace by the soothing
gestures of his thin hands and his beseeching eyes.

Xanthe felt and saw that her father was suffering, and exclaimed in a
fearless, resolute tone:

"Silence, Semestre! your scolding is hurting my father."

These words increased the house-keeper's wrath instead of lessening it.
In a half-furious, half-whining tone, she exclaimed:

"So it comes to this! The child orders the old woman. But you shall
know, Lysander, that I won't allow myself to be mocked like a fool. That
impudent Mopsus is your freed-woman's child, and served this house for
high wages, but he shall leave it this very day, so surely as I hope
to live until the vintage. He or I! If you wish to keep him, I'll go to
Agrigentum and live with my daughter and grandchildren, who send to me
by every messenger. If this insolent fellow is more to you than I am,
I'll leave this place of ingratitude. In Agrigentum--"

"It is beautiful in Agrigentum!" interrupted the conjurer, pointing with
his finger impressively in the direction of this famous city.

"It is delightful there," cried the old woman, "so long as one doesn't
meet pygmies like you in the streets."

The house-keeper was struggling for breath, and her master took
advantage of the pause to murmur beseechingly, like a child who is to be
deprived of something it loves:

"Mopsus must go--merry Mopsus? Nobody knows how to lift and support me
so well."

These words softened Semestre's wrath, and, lowering her voice, she
replied:

"You will no longer need the lad for that purpose; Leonax, Alciphron's
son, is coming to-day. He'll lift and support you as if you were his own
father. The people in Messina are friendly and honor age, for, while you
jeer at me, they remember th