"O mother, mother," cried Cadmus, "couldst thou but have seen
my sister before this hour!"

"It matters little now," answered Telephassa, and there was a
smile upon her face. "I go now to the better world, and, sooner
or later, shall find my daughter there."

I will not sadden you, my little hearers, with telling how
Telephassa died and was buried, but will only say, that her
dying smile grew brighter, instead of vanishing from her dead
face; so that Cadmus left convinced that, at her very first
step into the better world, she had caught Europa in her arms.
He planted some flowers on his mother's grave, and left them to
grow there, and make the place beautiful, when he should be far
away.

After performing this last sorrowful duty, he set forth alone,
and took the road towards the famous oracle of Delphi, as
Telephassa had advised him. On his way thither, he still
inquired of most people whom he met whether they had seen
Europa; for, to say the truth, Cadmus had grown so accustomed
to ask the question, that it came to his lips as readily as a
remark about the weather. He received various answers. Some
told him one thing, and some another. Among the rest, a mariner
affirmed, that, many years before, in a distant country, he had
heard a rumor about a white bull, which came swimming across
the sea with a child on his back, dressed up in flowers that
were blighted by the sea water. He did not know what had become
of the child or the bull; and Cadmus suspected, indeed, by a