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After many a pressure of the hand and cordial words of welcome, Phaon took the young girl's hand and led her to the new-comers, saying: "Give me Xanthe for a wife, my father. We have grown up together like the ivy and wild vine on the wall, and cannot part."
She had intended to discover whether Semestre spoke the truth, and in the stillness of the night consider what she must do to ascertain how much Phaon was concerned in his father's suit. But the god Morpheus willed otherwise, for scarcely had Xanthe laid down to rest, extinguished her little lamp, and wrapped herself closely in the woolen coverlet, when sleep overpowered her.
Xanthe laughed merrily, turned her back on the children, and went slowly down into the valley. During her walk all sorts of little incidents flashed through her mind with the speed of lightning; memories of the days when she herself was a little girl and Phaon had played with her daily, as the curly-headed Syrus now did with the herdsman's daughter.
A thousand joys and sorrows, shared in common, bound them to each other, and in the farthest horizons of her recollections lay an event which had given her affection for him a new direction. His mother and hers had died on the same day, and since then Xanthe had thought it her duty to watch over and care for him, at first, probably, only as a big live doll, afterward in a more serious way.
Leaning on Phaon's strong shoulder he joyously went out of the house, greeted his handsome young nephew as well as his brother, and said: "Let Phaon live with Xanthe in my house, which will soon be his own, for I am feeble and need help." "With all my heart," cried Protarch, "and it will be well on every account, for, for well, it must come out, for I, foolish graybeard "
His declaration that he wished another maiden than Xanthe for his wife soothed her not a little, and when she now heard of matrons' dresses, and not merely one robe, her eyes sparkled joyously, and, fixing them on the ground, she asked: "Is there a blue one among them? I'm particularly fond of blue." "I've selected a blue one, too," replied Protarch. "I'll explain for what purpose up yonder.
In the event of her death, she left to Xanthe, the wife of the centurion Martialis, her lawful property the villa at Kanopus, with all it contained, and the gardens appertaining to it, for the free use of herself and her children. The soldier listened speechless with astonishment. This gift was worth twenty houses in the city, and made its owner a rich man.
Nevertheless, to-day Xanthe was angry with her playfellow, and a maiden's wrath has two eyes one blind, the other keener than a falcon's. What she usually prized and valued in Phaon she now did not see at all, but distinguished every one of his defects.
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.
Semestre's praises of her cousin, the young Leonax, Xanthe had heard as little as the chirping of the crickets on the hearth, and before the house-keeper had finished speaking she rose, and, without bidding her good-night, turned her back and left the women's apartment.
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