Theria knew it was right for them to come. Nymphs were always the nursemaids of infant gods. Little Hermes must not wander alone, god though he be. How delicately they kissed him, bending over him, then rising, circling up and away as if carried by the breeze. Hermes was safe now no matter how rough the way.
Suddenly a step sounded in the lane, “clump clump,” coming nearer.
The nymphs and Hermes stopped still, listing as hares do in the path. Then instantly, thus poised, they vanished.
“Lentils—good lentils, who’ll buy?” came the call of old Labba, the market woman, so tired with her day’s work, tramping home to her poor scraggy farm in the hills.
Theria watched her. Poor Labba! She could not see the gods. Labba climbed the hill and was lost to view. Theria looked again.
Yes—at once, as though bursting out of invisible pods, they came again, and with them the music so elfin clear. The nymphs formed a circle and danced, with feet which did not touch the rocks, around their baby god. Sometimes they circled above the stream, sometimes swept near under Theria’s very window. So they danced and danced.
Baltè, searching anxiously through the house for her nurseling, found her at length in the far shadowy room. She was sitting by the window, her head resting on the window ledge over which was strewn loose her night-dark hair.
She was sound asleep.
“An’ I only wish,” said Baltè afterward to Medon, “you could ’a’ seen the smile on her face. You wouldn’t ’a’ thought this very mornin’ she was like a whole crew o’ mænads!”