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At the same moment, Milza entered, and in a low voice informed Anaxagoras that Philothea deemed this prolonged interview with the stranger dangerous to his feeble health; and begged that he would suffer himself to be placed on the couch. The invalid replied by a message desiring her presence. As she entered, he said to her, "Philothea, behold your kinsman Chrysippus, son of Basileon."
Eudora, in her haste, would have stepped across the springs that bubbled from the rocks; but Milza held her back, saying, "Did you never hear that these brooks are Creuesa's tears? When the unhappy daughter of Erectheus left her infant in this cave to perish, she wept as she departed; and Phoebus, her immortal lover, changed her tears to rills.
A placid smile rested on his features; and she saw that his spirit had passed in peace. She awoke Milza, and desired that the household might be summoned. As they stood around the couch of that venerable man, Geta and Milza wept bitterly; but Philothea calmly kissed his cold cheek; and Plato looked on him with serene affection, as he said, "So sleep the good."
Milza reposed on a couch close by her side, ready to obey the slightest summons; the small earthen lamp that stood on the floor, shaded by an open tablet, burned dim; and the footsteps of Plato were faintly heard in the stillness of the night, as he softly paced to and fro in the open portico. Philothea leaned her head upon the couch, and gradually yielded to the drowsy influence.
"And my good old master used to say he had changed but little since he was a boy, when he made the wagoner turn back, by lying down in front of his horses," rejoined Milza: "I thought of that, when Alcibiades came and drank at the Fountain, while I was filling my urn.
"Ah, dear lady," replied the peasant, "you have ever been a good friend to us; and there is one that sleeps, who never spoke an ungentle word to any of us. When her strength was almost gone, she bade me love Eudora, even as I had loved her; and the gods know that for her sake Milza would have died. Phoebus protect me, but this is an awful place to speak of those who sleep.
Dione, old as she was, overcame her fear of perils by land and sea, and resolved to follow her young mistress into Persia. Before a new moon had begun its course, Pandaenus fulfilled his intention of returning to Olympia, in company with the Lacedaemonian ambassador and his train. Cleonica, attended by Geta and Milza, travelled under the same protection.
The grateful Arcadian dropped on one knee, and kissing Philothea's hand, while the tears flowed down her cheeks, said: "She has been a mother to orphan Milza, and I will not leave her now. Geta says it would be wrong to leave her when she is in affliction."
"The gods have blessed Clinias with abundant wealth," said Eudora; "Did he offer nothing to save the innocent?" "Dear lady," replied Milza, "Alcibiades demands such an immense sum for the ivory, that he says he might as well undertake to build the wall of Hipparchus, as to pay it. But I have not told you the most cruel part of the story.
When she heard this mysterious allusion to the music, she looked at Plato with an expression of surprise; while Milza and the other attendants seemed afraid in the presence of one thus visited by the gods. With looks full of beaming affection, the invalid continued: "And now, Philothea, we will again walk to that pleasant place, where we went when you finished the song."
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