Entering the market place, I passed close to a noble lady who was walking with a crowd of servants in her train.

“By Hercules!” she cried.  “It’s Lucius!” I hung back, confused and blushing, and Byrrhena, for it was she, said to one of her companions: 

“It’s Salvia’s boy!  Isn’t he the image of his modest, beautiful mother?  Young, tall and fair, with just her bright, grey-blue eyes, and her alert glance.  A Plutarch every bit of him!  Lucius, don’t you remember your kinswoman, Byrrhena?  Why, I brought you up with my own hands!”

I remembered Byrrhena very well, and loved her.  But I did not want to meet her just then.  However, I went with her to her house, a beautiful building of fine marble, containing some exquisite statuary.

“You will stay here, my dear Lucius, won’t you?” she said.

I then told her that I had come to Hypata to see Milo and his wife Pamphila.  My friend Demeas of Corinth had given me a letter of introduction.

“Don’t you know that Pamphila is a witch?” she cried.  “Do not go near her, my child, or she will practise her wicked arts on you.  It is just handsome young men like you that she enchants and destroys.”

Far from being terrified by Byrrhena’s warning, I was delighted with it.  I longed to become an apprentice to a witch as powerful as Pamphila.  With a hasty excuse I left the house and set out to find Milo.  Neither he nor Pamphila was in when I called.  But their maid who opened the door, was such a pretty wench that I did not regret their absence.  Fotis, as she was called, was a graceful, sprightly little thing, with the loveliest hair I ever saw.  I liked the way it fell in soft puffs on her neck, and rested on her neat linen tunic.

It was a case of love at first sight with both of us.  But before I began to ask her about Pamphila, Milo returned.  He welcomed me very warmly, and put the best room in his house at my disposal, and desired me to stay to dinner.  But in spite of my ardent curiosity, I was, I must confess, rather afraid of meeting his wife.  So I said that my kinswoman Byrrhena had already engaged me to dine with her.

On arriving at Byrrhena’s mansion I was surprised to find that a splendid banquet had been prepared, and that all the best people in Hypata were present.  We reclined on couches of ivory, covered with golden drapery, and a throng of lovely girls served us with exquisite dishes; while pretty curly-headed boys brought the wine round in goblets of gold and amber.

When the lights were brought in, the talk became freer and gayer; everybody was bent on laughing and making his neighbours laugh.

“We are, you see, preparing for the great festival to-morrow,” Byrrhena said to me.  “Hypata is the only city that keeps the feast of the god of laughter.  You must come, and invent some pleasantry to propitiate the merriest of all deities.”

“By Hercules!” I replied.  “If the laughing god will only lend me inspiration to-night, I will do my best to entertain the townspeople to-morrow.”