y mixed
with gray. But she is cheerful, active, and clever, and will aid Phaon
and Xanthe in their young house-keeping with many a piece of good
advice."

"I shall go to my daughter in Agrigentum," said Semestre, positively.

"Go," replied Lysander, kindly, "and enjoy yourself in your old age on
the money you have saved."

"Which my father," added Leonax, "will increase by the sum of a thousand
drachmae.

"My Alciphron has a heart!" cried the house-keeper.

"You shall receive from me, on the day of your departure, the same sum
and a matron's blue robe," said Lysander.

Shortly after the marriage of Xanthe and Phaon, Semestre went to live
with her daughter.

The dike by the sea was splendidly repaired without any dispute, for
the estate once more belonged to the two brothers in common, and Xanthe
found in Praxilla a new, kind mother.

The marble seat, on which the young people's fate was decided, was
called by the grandchildren of the wedded pair, who lived to old age in
love and harmony, "the bench of the question."

THE ELIXIR.

By Georg Ebers

Every Leipziger knows well the tall gabled house in the
Katherinenstrasse which I have in mind. It stands not far from the
Market Place, and is particularly dear to the writer of this true story
because it has been in the possession of his family for a long time.
Many curious things have happened there worthy of being rescued from
oblivion, and though my relatives would now like to relieve me of
this task, because I have found it necessary to point out to certain
ingenuous ones among them the truth which they were endeavoring to
conceal, I rejoice that I have sufficient leisure to chronicle for
future generations of Ueberhells the wonderful life and doings of their
progenitor as I learned them from my grandmother and other good people.

So here, then, begins my story.

Of old, the aforementioned house was known as "The Three Kings," but in
no otherwise was it distinguished from its neighbours in the street save
through the sign of the Court apothecary on the ground floor; this
hung over the arched doorway, and gay with bright colour and gilding
represented the three patron Saints of the craft: Caspar, Melchior, and
Balthasar.

This house in the Katherinenstrasse continued to be called "The Three
Kings," although, soon after the death of old Caspar Ueberhell, the sign
was removed, and the shop closed. And many things happened to it and the
house whic