will give Argutis a lesson!  But by this time, perhaps—­Just go and fetch him in.”  With these words Heron again dropped his spoon, wiped his beard, and then, seeing that Dido was still standing before him as though spellbound, twitching her slave’s gray gown, he repeated his order in such angry tones—­though before he had spoken to her as gently as if she were one of his own children—­that the old woman started violently and made for the door, crouching low and whimpering bitterly.

The soft-hearted tyrant was really sorry for the faithful old servant he had bought a generation since for the home to which he had brought his fair young wife, and he began to speak kindly to her, as he had previously done to the birds.

This comforted the old woman so much that again she could not help crying; but, notwithstanding the sincerity of her tears, being accustomed of old to take advantage of her master’s moods, she felt that now was the time to tell her melancholy story.  First of all she would at any rate see whether Melissa had not meanwhile returned; so she humbly kissed the hem of his robe and hurried away.

“Send Argutis to me!” Heron roared after her, and he returned to his breakfast with renewed energy.

He thought, as he ate, of his son’s beautiful work, and the foolish self-importance of Argutis, so faithful, and usually, it must be owned, so shrewd.  Then his eyes fell on Melissa’s vacant place opposite to him, and he suddenly pushed away his bowl and rose to seek his daughter.

At this moment the starling called, in a clear, inviting tone, “Olympias!” and this cheered him, reminding him of the happy hour he had passed at his wife’s grave and the good augury he had had there.  The belief in a better time at hand, of which he had spoken to the bird, again took possession of his sanguine soul; and, fully persuaded that Melissa was detained in her own room or elsewhere by some trifling matter, he went to the window and shouted her name; for hers, too, opened on to the garden.

And it seemed as though the dear, obedient girl had come at his bidding, for, as he turned back into the room again, Melissa was standing in the open door.

After the pretty Greek greeting, “Joy be with you,” which she faintly answered, he asked her, as fractiously as though he had spent hours of anxiety, where she had been so long.  But he was suddenly silent, for he was astonished to see that she had not come from her room, but, as her dress betrayed, from some long expedition.  Her appearance, too, had none of the exquisite neatness which it usually displayed; and then—­what a state she was in!  Whence had she come so early in the day?

The girl took off the kerchief that covered her head, and with a faint groan pushed her tangled hair off her temples, and her bosom heaved as she panted out in a weary voice:  “Here I am!  But O, father, what a night I have spent!”

Heron could not for a minute or two find words to answer her.