"There is no haste, wife," he said. "The Stranger will spend the night
under our roof. It is not yet late. While you get supper, we will rest
beneath the olive trees and watch the sun go down behind the hills."

"Until I can better serve you, then," Lydia replied; and the two men went
out again through the open door, and sat down upon a wooden bench which
commanded a view of the little valley and the hills beyond.

Meanwhile, within doors, Lydia dropped the stately dignity of her company
manners and became once more the busy housewife. When Chloe and Daphne
returned from the spring, she had barley-cakes baking in the oven, and
sausages were roasting before the hearth-fire. A kettle of broth steamed
beside it.

"How good it smells!" cried Dion, when he came in with Argos from the
farm-yard. "I could eat a whole pig myself. Do cook a lot of sausages,
Mother. I am as hungry as a wolf."

"And you a Spartan boy!" said his Mother reprovingly. "You should think
less of what you put in your stomach! Plain fare makes the strongest men.
It is only polite to give a guest the best you have, but that's no excuse
for being greedy and wanting to stuff yourself every day."

"Well, then," said Dion, "I wish Hermes, if he is the god who guides
travelers, would bring them this way oftener. I'd like to be a strong
man, but I like good things to eat, too, and when we have company, we
have a feast."

His Mother did not answer him; she was too busy.