"Oh, can it be so late? To me the time has gone by like a sweet breeze,
which kissed my forehead and passed away. Did not you hear some one
call? They will be waiting for us, and you must be at your friend's
house in the town before dawn. Good-bye, my brave hero."

"Good-bye, my dearest one. In five days we shall hear our marriage-hymn.
But you tremble as if we were going to battle instead of to our wedding."

"I'm trembling at the greatness of our joy; one always trembles in
expectation of anything unusually great."

"Hark, Rhodopis is calling again; let us go. I have asked Theopompus to
arrange everything about our wedding with her according to the usual
custom; and I shall remain in his house incognito until I can carry you
off as my own dear wife."

"And I will go with you."

The next morning, as the three friends were walking with their host in
his garden, Zopyrus exclaimed: "Wily, Bartja, I've been dreaming all
night of your Sappho. What a lucky fellow you are! Why I fancied my new
wife in Sardis was no end of a beauty until I saw Sappho, and now when I
think of her she seems like an owl. If Araspes could see Sappho he would
be obliged to confess that even Panthea had been outdone at last. Such a
creature was never made before. Auramazda is an awful spendthrift; he
might have made three beauties out of Sappho. And how charmingly it
sounded when she said 'good-night' to us in Persian."

"While I was away," said Bartja, "she has been taking a great deal of
trouble to learn Persian from the wife of a Babylonian carpet-merchant,