A Question | Page 8

the bearded Tritons, and merrily urged them
through the flood.
When the surf beat roaring on the strand, Xanthe thought she could
hear these creatures guiding their course with their scaly tails and
blowing into shells, and many a glimmering foam-crest on a deep-blue
wave was no transparent bubble-no, the girl distinctly saw that it was
the white neck, the gleaming arm, or the snowy foot of one of Nereus's
daughters. She believed that she clearly distinguished them sporting
joyously up and down through the azure water, now plunging into the
depths with their feet, and now with their heads foremost, anon floating
gently on the surface of the waves. One held out her hand to another,
and in so doing their beautiful, rounded arms often gleamed beneath the
crest of a surge.
Every day they practised new games, as the sea never looks precisely
the same; each hour it changed its hue, here, there, and everywhere,
Light streaks, like transparent bluish-green gauze, often ran through the
darker surface, which resembled a purplish-blue mantle of some costly
Phoenician stuff; the waves could flash black as the eye of night, and
white as Leucothea's neck.
Then Amphitrite appeared, with floating hair and resonant voice, and
beside her Poseidon with his four steeds.
Frowning sullenly, he struck them sharply with his lash, which whistled
through the air, and angrily thrust his trident deep into the sea. Instantly
the waves took hues of lighter brown, deeper yellow, and cloudy gray,
and the sea wore the aspect of a shallow pond with muddy bottom, into
which workmen hurl blocks of stone. The purity of the water was sadly
dimmed, and the billows dashed foaming toward the sky, threatening in
their violent assault to shatter the marble dike erected along the shore.
The Nereids, trembling, took refuge in the ever-calm depths, the
Tritons no longer used their hollow shells to blow gentle harmonies;
nay, they sent forth crashing war-songs, as if some hostile citadel were
to be assailed; while Amphitrite thrust both hands into her long,
fluttering hair, and with out-stretched head uttered her furious roar.

But to-day the sea was calm, and when Xanthe had reached the spring
the edges of the milk-white, light, fleecy clouds, towering one above
another on the summits of the loftier mountains, were still glowing with
a rosy light. It was the edge of the garment of the vanishing Eos, the
leaves of the blossoms scattered by the Hours in the pathway of the
four steeds of Helios, as they rose from the waves.
To day and at this hour the morning sunlight fell serenely on the tall
cypresses upon the hill, the trees in the garden swayed in the soft breath
of the morning breeze, and Xanthe nodded to them, for she thought the
beautiful Dryads living in the trees were greeting each other.
Often, with a brief prayer, she laid flowers or a round cake on the altar
that stood beside her seat, and which her ancestor had erected to the
nymph of the spring--but today she had not come for this.
Then what brought her to the hill so early? Did she visit the spring to
admire her own image in its mirror-like surface?
At home she was rarely permitted such an indulgence, for, whenever
she looked in the polished metal-disk, Semestre used to say:
"If a girl often peers into such useless things, she'll certainly see a fool's
image in them."
Forbidden things are charming, yet Xanthe rarely looked into this
liquid mirror, though she might have enjoyed gazing at it frequently,
for her figure was tall and slender as the trunk of a cypress, her thick
fair hair glittered like gold, the oval of her face was exquisitely rounded,
long lashes shaded the large blue eyes that could conceal no emotion
which stirred her soul, and when she was alone seemed to ask: "What
have the gods allotted for my future?" Yet in their gaze might often be
read the answer "Something delightful, surely."
And yet Xanthe did not come to the spring to paint pictures of her
future; on the contrary, she came to be sad, and shed tears unrebuked.
She did not weep passionately, but the big salt drops welled slowly
from her eyes and ran down her young cheeks, as drop after drop of

shining sap flows down the trunk of a wounded birch-tree.
Yes, Xanthe felt very sorrowful, yet everything that surrounded her was
so bright, and at her home laughter was rarely silent, while her own
often rang out no less merrily than that of lively Chloris and dark-
skinned Dorippe.
Her sick father, now slowly recovering, could refuse her nothing, and,
if Semestre tried to do so, Xanthe usually succeeded in having her own
way. There was no lack of