ch his master desired to use his young countrywoman, Ledscha, as
a model, and whose statues Archias intended to place in his house in
Alexandria and in the great weaving establishment at Tennis beside the
statue of Demeter.

Stephanion, a Greek woman who grew up in a Macedonian household, must
know something about her.

So he cautiously turned the conversation to the spinner Arachne, and
when Stephanion entered into it, admitted that he, too, was curious to
learn in what way the sculptors would represent her.

"Yes," replied the maid, "my mistress has more than once racked her
brains over that, and Archias too. Perhaps they will carve her as a girl
at work in the house of her father Idmon, the purple dyer of Colophon."

"Never," replied Bias in a tone of dissent. "Just imagine how the loom
would look wrought in gold and ivory!"

"I thought so too," said Stephanion, in apology for the foolish idea.
"Daphne thinks that the two will model her in different ways: Myrtilus,
as mistress in the weaving room, showing with proud delight a piece just
completed to the nymphs from the Pactolus and other rivers, who sought
her at Colophon to admire her work; but Hermon, after she aroused the
wrath of Athene because she dared to weave into the hangings the love
adventures of the gods with mortal women."

"Father Zeus as a swan toying with Leda," replied Bias as confidently
as if Arachne's works were before his eyes, "and in the form of a
bull bearing away Europa, the chaste Artemis bending over the sleeping
Endymion."

"How that pleases you men!" interrupted the maid, striking him lightly
on the arm with the duster which she had brought from the tent. "But
ought the virgin Athene to be blamed because she punished the weaver
who, with all her skill, was only a mortal woman, for thus exposing her
divine kindred?"

"Certainly not," replied Bias, and Stephanion went on eagerly: "And
when the great Athene, who invented weaving and protects weavers,
condescended to compete with Arachne, and was excelled by her, surely
her gall must have overflowed. Whoever is just will scarcely blame
her for striking the audacious conqueror on the brow with the weaver's
shuttle."

"It is that very thing," replied Bias modestly, "which to a
short-sighted fool like myself--may the great goddess not bear me a
grudge for it!--never seemed just in her. Even the mortal who succumbs
in a fair fight ought not to be enraged against the victor. At least, s