"Here is the other half of the ornament, it belonged to my poor sister
Xanthe!"

The old Greek was a pathetic sight, he struggled hard to collect himself,
looking with tender delight at Uarda, his sinewy hands trembled as he
compared the two pieces of the necklet; they matched precisely--each
represented the wing of an eagle which was attached to half an oval
covered with an inscription; when they were laid together they formed the
complete figure of a bird with out-spread wings, on whose breast the
lines exactly matched of the following oracular verse:

"Alone each is a trifling thing, a woman's useless toy
But with its counterpart behold! the favorite bird of Zeus."

A glance at the inscription convinced the king that he held in his hand
the very jewel which he had put with his own hands round the neck of his
daughter Xanthe on her marriage-day, and of which the other half had been
preserved by her mother, from whom it had descended to Praxilla. It had
originally been made for his wife and her twin sister who had died young.
Before he made any enquiries, or asked for any explanations, he took
Uarda's head between his hands, and turning her face close to his he
gazed at her features, as if he were reading a book in which he expected
to find a memorial of all the blissful hours of his youth, and the girl
felt no fear; nor did she shrink when he pressed his lips to her
forehead, for she felt that this man's blood ran in her own veins. At
last the king signed to the interpreter; Uarda was asked to tell all she
knew of her mother, and when she said that she had come a captive to
Thebes with an infant that had soon after died, that her father had
bought her and had loved her in spite of her being dumb, the prince's