“Dearest Cadmus,” said she, “thou hast been the truest son that ever mother had, and faithful to the very last.  Who else would have borne with my infirmities as thou hast!  It is owing to thy care, thou tenderest child, that my grave was not dug long years ago, in some valley, or on some hillside, that lies far, far behind us.  It is enough.  Thou shalt wander no more on this hopeless search.  But when thou hast laid thy mother in the earth, then go, my son, to Delphi, and inquire of the oracle what thou shalt do next.”

“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 felt 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 toward 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 rumour 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 queer twinkle in the mariner’s eyes, that he was putting a joke upon him, and had never really heard anything about the matter.

Poor Cadmus found it more wearisome to travel alone than to bear all his dear mother’s weight while she had kept him company.  His heart, you will understand, was now so heavy that it seemed impossible, sometimes, to carry it any farther.  But his limbs were strong and active and well accustomed to exercise.  He walked swiftly along, thinking of King Agenor and Queen Telephassa, and his brothers, and the friendly Thasus, all of whom he had left behind him, at one point of his pilgrimage or another, and never expected to see them any more.  Full of these remembrances, he came within sight of a lofty mountain, which the people thereabouts told him was called Parnassus.  On the slope of Mount Parnassus was the famous Delphi, whither Cadmus was going.