I

COMPANY AT THE FARM


One lovely spring morning long years ago in Hellas, Lydia, wife of
Melas the Spartan, sat upon a stool in the court of her house, with her
wool-basket beside her, spinning. She was a tall, strong-looking young
woman with golden hair and blue eyes, and as she twirled her distaff and
twisted the white wool between her fingers she sang a little song to
herself that sounded like the humming of bees in a garden.

The little court of the house where she sat was open to the sky, and the
afternoon sun came pouring over the wall which surrounded it, and made a
brilliant patch of light upon the earthen floor. The little stones which
were embedded in the earth to form a sort of pavement glistened in the
sun and seemed to play at hide and seek with the moving shadow of Lydia's
distaff as she spun. On the thatch which covered the arcade around
three sides of the court pigeons crooned and preened their feathers, and
from a room in the second story of the house, which opened upon a little
gallery enclosing the fourth side of the court, came the _clack clack_ of
a loom.

As she spun, the shadow of Lydia's distaff grew longer and longer across
the floor until at last the sunlight disappeared behind the wall, leaving
the whole court in gray shadow.

Under the gallery a large room opened into the court. The embers of a
fire glowed dully upon a stone hearth in the center of this room, and