time to tell her melancholy story. First of all she would at any rate
see whether Melissa had not meanwhile returned; so she humbly kissed the
hem of his robe and hurried away.

"Send Argutis to me!" Heron roared after her, and he returned to his
breakfast with renewed energy.

He thought, as he ate, of his son's beautiful work, and the foolish self-
importance of Argutis, so faithful, and usually, it must be owned, so
shrewd. Then his eyes fell on Melissa's vacant place opposite to him,
and he suddenly pushed away his bowl and rose to seek his daughter.

At this moment the starling called, in a clear, inviting tone,
"Olympias!" and this cheered him, reminding him of the happy hour he
had passed at his wife's grave and the good augury he had had there.
The belief in a better time at hand, of which he had spoken to the bird,
again took possession of his sanguine soul; and, fully persuaded that
Melissa was detained in her own room or elsewhere by some trifling
matter, he went to the window and shouted her name; for hers, too, opened
on to the garden.

And it seemed as though the dear, obedient girl had come at his bidding,
for, as he turned back into the room again, Melissa was standing in the
open door.

After the pretty Greek greeting, "Joy be with you," which she faintly
answered, he asked her, as fractiously as though he had spent hours of
anxiety, where she had been so long. But he was suddenly silent, for he
was astonished to see that she had not come from her room, but, as her
dress betrayed, from some long expedition. Her appearance, too, had none