give your last copper piece
to hear her again."

"Indeed!" muttered his father. "Well, there are very good teachers here.
Something by Linus did you say she sang?"

"Something of that kind; a lament for the dead of very great power:
'Return, oh! return my beloved, came back--come home!' that was the
burthen of it. And there was a passage which said: 'Oh that each tear
had a voice and could join with me in calling thee!' And how she sang
it, father! I do not think I ever in my life heard anything like it. Ask
mother. Even Dada's eyes were full of tears."

"Yes, it was beautiful," the mother agreed. "I could not help wishing
that you were there."

Karnis rose and paced the little room, waving his arms and muttering:

"Ah! so that is how it is! A friend of the Muses. We saved the large
lute--that is well. My chlamys has an ugly hole in it--if the girls were
not asleep... but the first thing to-morrow Ague.... Tell me, is she
handsome, tall?"

Herse had been watching her excitable husband with much satisfaction
and now answered his question: "Not a Hera--not a Muse--decidedly not.
Hardly above the middle height, slightly made, but not small, black
eyes, long lashes, dark straight eyebrows. I could hardly, like Orpheus,
call her beautiful..."

"Oh yes, mother.--Beautiful is a great word, and one my father has
taught me to use but rarely; but she--if she is not beautiful who
is?--when she raised her large dark eyes and threw back her head to
bring out her lament; tone after tone seemed to come from the bottom of
her heart and rise to the furthest height of heaven. Ah, if Agne could
learn to sing like that! 'Throw your whole soul into your singing.'--You
have told her that again and again. Now, Gorgo can and does. And she
stood there as steady and as highly strung as a bow, every note came out
with the ring of an arrow and went straight to the heart, as clear and
pure as possible."

"Be silent!" cried the old man covering his ears with his hands. "I
shall not close an eye till daylight, and then... Orpheus, take
that silver--take it all, I have no more--go early to market and buy
flowers--laurel branches, ivy, violets and roses. But no lotuses though
the market here is full of them; they are showy, boastful things with
no scent, I cannot bear them. We will go crowned to the Temple of the
Muses."

"Buy away, buy all you want!" said Herse laughing, as she showed her
husband some bright gold pieces. "We got that to-da