The girl walked slowly toward the door, and tried to conceal herself
behind the projecting pillars to listen, but Semestre saw her, rose from
her seat, and drove her out of doors with her myrtle-staff, exclaiming:

"Let no one come in till I call. Even Xanthe must not interrupt us."

"You won't stay alone, for Aphrodite and all the Loves will soon join
such a pair," cried the girl, as she sprang across the threshold, banging
the door loudly behind her.

"What did she say?" asked Semestre, looking suspiciously after the
maiden. The vexations one has to endure from those girls, Jason, can't
be described, especially since they've grown deaf."

"Deaf?" asked the old man in astonishment.

"Yes, they scarcely understand a word correctly, and even Xanthe, who has
just reached her seventeenth year, is beginning to be hard of hearing."

A smile flitted over Jason's face, and, raising his voice to a louder
tone, he said, flatteringly:

"Every one can't have senses as keen as yours, Semestre; have you time to
listen to me?"

The house-keeper nodded assent, leaned against the column nearest the
hearth, rested both hands on her staff, and bent forward to intimate that
she would listen attentively, and did not wish to lose a single word.

Jason stood directly opposite, and, while thus measuring each other with