"And then?"
"Then I give them to a peasant, on whose land they lay eggs, eat and die.
The right farmer for your hens lives in Agrigentum."
Lysander shrugged his shoulders; and, as, leaning on his daughter, he tottered slowly forward, almost falling on the threshold, Xanthe took a silent vow to give him a son on whom he could firmly depend—a stalwart, reliable man.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TWO SUCKING-PIGS.
Fifteen minutes had passed, and the old house-keeper's face still glowed—no longer from anger, but because, full of zeal, she now moulded cakes before the bright flames on the hearth, now basted the roast on the spit with its own juices.
Beside her stood old Jason, who could not give up his young master's cause for lost, and exposed himself once more to the arrows of Semestre's angry words, because he bitterly repented having irritated instead of winning her.
Unfortunately, his soothing speeches fell on hard ground, for Semestre scarcely vouchsafed a reply, and at last distinctly intimated that he interrupted her.
"Attention," she said, "is the mother of every true success. It is even more needful in cooking than in weaving; and if Leonax, for whom my hands are busy, resembles his father, he knows how to distinguish bad from good."
"Alciphron," replied Jason, "liked the figs on our arbor by the house better than yours."