heart, though till now she had been as a child--an innocent child--as she
herself could say, who had seen her grow up from the cradle. Her faith
need not trouble either Melissa or Alexander, for gentler and more modest
wives than the Christian women were not to be found among the Greeks--and
she had known many.

Melissa rarely interrupted the garrulous old woman; but, while she
listened, pleasant pictures of the future rose before her fancy. She saw
herself and Diodoros ruling over Polybius's household, and, close at
hand, on Zeno's estate, Alexander with his beautiful and adored wife.
There, under Zeno's watchful eye, the wild youth would become a noble
man. Her father would often come to visit them, and in their happiness
would learn to find pleasure in life again. Only now and then the
thought of the sacrifice which the vehement Philip must make for his
younger brother, and of the danger which still threatened Alexander,
disturbed the cheerful contentment of her soul, rich as it was in glad
hopes.

The nearer they got to her own home, the more lightly her heart beat.
She had none but good news to report there. The old woman, panting for
breath, was obliged to beg her to consider her sixty years and moderate
her pace.

Melissa willingly checked her steps; and when, at the end of the street
of Hermes, they reached the temple of the god from whom it was named and
turned off to the right, the good woman parted from her, for in this
quiet neighborhood she could safely be trusted to take care of herself.

Melissa was now alone. On her left lay the gardens of Hermes, where, on
the southern side, stood her father's house and that of their neighbor