Ariadne’s voice was exceptionally fine—where all voices were excellent. Its quality was singularly bird-like; sometimes it was the joyous note of the lark, and again it was the tenderly sweet, and passionately sad, dropping-song of the mocking-bird.
When I looked out of my window, the sun was just silvering the point of the Spear, and light wreaths of mist were lifting from the valleys. I saw the Master, staff in hand, going up toward the mountains, and Fides was coming across the hills.
I had wondered, when I saw the Master and his wife on the balcony the night before, how they came to be there at such an hour on such a night. I took the first opportunity to find out. The only way to find out about people’s affairs in Caskia, is by asking questions, or, by observation—which takes longer. They speak with their lives instead of their tongues, concerning so many things that other people are wordy about. They are quite devoid of theories. But they are charmingly willing to impart what one wishes to know.
I learned that Clytia’s parents lived within a stone’s throw of her house on one side, and Calypso’s grandparents at about the same distance on the other. And I also learned that it was an arrangement universally practiced; the clustering together of families, in order that the young might always be near at hand to support, and protect, and to smooth the pathway of the old. Certain savage races upon the Earth abandon the aged to starvation and death; certain other races, not savage, abandon them to a loneliness that is only less cruel. But these extraordinarily just people repay to the helplessness of age, the tenderness and care, the loving sympathy, which they themselves received in the helplessness of infancy.
The grandparents happened to be away from home, and I did not meet them for some days.
On that first morning we had Clytia’s parents to breakfast. Immediately after breakfast the circle broke up. It was Clytia’s morning to visit and assist in the school which her little ones attended; Ariadne started off to her work, with a fresh cluster of the delicious blue flowers in her belt; and I had the choice of visiting the steel-works with Calypso, or taking a trip to Lake Eudosa, on foot, with the Master. I could hardly conceal the delight with which I decided in favor of the latter. We set off at once, and what a walk it was! A little way through the city, and then across a strip of lush green meadow, starred with daisies, thence into sweet-smelling woods, and then down, down, down, along the rocky edge of the canyon, past the deafening waterfalls to the wonderful Lake!
We passed, on our way through the city, a large, fine structure which, upon inquiry, I found to be the place where the Master “taught” on the Sabbath day.
“Do you wish to look in?” he asked, and we turned back and entered. The interior was beautiful and vast, capacious enough to seat several thousand people; and every Sunday it was filled.
I thought it a good opportunity for finding out something about the religion of this people, and I began by asking:
“Are there any divisions in your Church,—different denominations, I mean?”