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"My young friend," answered Lysander, colouring high, "Percalus hath vouchsafed me as yet no occasion; and, indeed, she alone, of all the friends whom I left behind, does not seem to recognize me." His eyes, as he spoke, rested with a mute reproach in their gaze on the form of a virgin, who had just paused in the choral dance, and whose looks were bent obdurately on the ground.

Before Lysander could utter the eager assurance that he was very far from thinking meanly of Percalus, the other bystanders, impatient at this whispered colloquy, seized his attention with a volley of questions, to which he gave but curt and not very relevant answers, so much had the lad's few sentences disturbed the calm tenor of his existing self-possession.

Percalus. "What canst thou mean? By all the Gods, I pray thee speak plain." Percalus. "If Pausanias be recalled, wouldst thou still go to Byzantium?" Lysander. "No; but I think the Ephors have decided not so to discredit their General." Percalus. Lysander. "Oh, Percalus, do I conceive thee aright?

Hast thou any reason to think that thy father Dorcis will be sent to replace Pausanias the great Pausanias!" Percalus. "Dorcis, my father, is a warrior whom Sparta reckons second to none; a most brave captain, and every inch a Spartan; but but " Lysander. "Percalus, do not trifle with me. Thou knowest how my fate has been linked to the Regent's.

The religious festival which had provided the Ephors with an excuse for delaying their answer to the Ionian envoys occupied the city. The youths and the maidens met in the sacred chorus; and Lysander, standing by amidst the gazers, suddenly felt his heart beat. A boy pulled him by the skirt of his mantle. "Lysander, hast thou yet scolded Percalus?" said the boy's voice, archly.

Percalus ceased to seek for the arrow, and they seated themselves on a little knoll in the hollow, side by side, and frankly she gave him her hand, and listened, with rosy cheek and rising bosom, to his honest wooing. He told her truly, how her image had been with him in the strange lands; how faithful he had been to the absent, amidst all the beauties of the Isles and of the East.

"But indeed," he added, as he saw the cloud vanishing from her brow; "indeed thou wert so provoking, and so irresistibly beauteous. And how camest thou here, as if thou hadst dropped from the heavens?" "Didst thou think," answered Percalus demurely, "that I could be suspected of following thee?

Lysander coloured, and replied in a voice that slightly trembled, "I cannot hope that thy sister interests herself in me. Nay, when I left Sparta, I thought " He checked himself. "Thought what?" "That among those who remained behind Percalus might find her betrothed long before I returned." "Among those who remained behind! Percalus! How meanly thou must think of her."

Thou must have intelligence not shared even by my father, himself an Ephor. What is it?" Percalus. "Thou wilt be secret, my Lysander, for what I may tell thee I can only learn at the hearth-stone." Lysander. "Fear me not. Is not all between us a secret?" Percalus. "Well, then, Periclides and my father, as thou art aware, are near kinsmen.

Here we have so often met before; here we parted last; here thou knewest I should go; here I knew that I might await thee." Percalus did not answer at much length, but what she said sufficed to enchant her lover. For the education of a Spartan maid did not favour the affected concealment of real feelings.