their women as they most honored)
the same liberty and the same station as those of Italy enjoyed. She
felt, therefore, a thrill of delight as Glaucus earnestly replied:

'Ever mayst thou think thus, Ione--ever be your pure heart your unerring
guide! Happy it had been for Greece if she had given to the chaste the
same intellectual charms that are so celebrated amongst the less worthy
of her women. No state falls from freedom--from knowledge, while your
sex smile only on the free, and by appreciating, encourage the wise.'

Arbaces was silent, for it was neither his part to sanction the
sentiment of Glaucus, nor to condemn that of Ione, and, after a short
and embarrassed conversation, Glaucus took his leave of Ione.

When he was gone, Arbaces, drawing his seat nearer to the fair
Neapolitan's, said in those bland and subdued tones, in which he knew so
well how to veil the mingled art and fierceness of his character:

'Think not, my sweet pupil, if so I may call you, that I wish to shackle
that liberty you adorn while you assume: but which, if not greater, as
you rightly observe, than that possessed by the Roman women, must at
least be accompanied by great circumspection, when arrogated by one
unmarried. Continue to draw crowds of the gay, the brilliant, the wise
themselves, to your feet--continue to charm them with the conversation
of an Aspasia, the music of an Erinna--but reflect, at least, on those
censorious tongues which can so easily blight the tender reputation of a
maiden; and while you provoke admiration, give, I beseech you, no
victory to envy.'

'What mean you, Arbaces?' said Ione, in an alarmed and trembling voice:
'I know you are my friend, that you desire only my honour and my
welfare. What is it you would say?'

'Your friend--ah, how sincerely! May I speak then as a friend, without
reserve and without offence?'

'I beseech you do so.'

'This young profligate, this Glaucus, how didst thou know him? Hast thou
seen him often?' And as Arbaces spoke, he fixed his gaze steadfastly
upon Ione, as if he sought to penetrate into her soul.

Recoiling before that gaze, with a strange fear which she could not
explain, the Neapolitan answered with confusion and hesitation: 'He was
brought to my house as a countryman of my father's, and I may say of
mine. I have known him only within this last week or so: but why these
questions?'

'Forgive me,' said Arbaces; 'I thought you might have known him longer.
Bas