“Oh, yes, the fairy said you would come to play with us. How lovely! And do you live there in the town by the sea? For that is the sea, isn’t it? We never saw it, but our mother came from England when she was a little girl, and she has told us about it.”
“Surely it is the sea. Sometimes I long to go away on it, far beyond those cloudy mountains there in Asia; but in your land is there no sea? How strange a place! How can one live away from the sea—not I at least, I should die of loneliness.”
SAPPHO PASSED HER WITHOUT A GLANCE
“We are lonely sometimes,” said Rose, “but not for the sea. We want other girls, for where we live there are only boys, and they live a long way off, on the next ranch. What is the name of your town?”
“That city is called Mitylene, and this is the island of Lesbos, the loveliest of all the Grecian islands.”
“Ruth, do you hear, this is Greece! Where Hector and Achilles lived, and Jason, and Ulysses ... Oh, Sappho, how wonderful! Shall we see them?”
Sappho laughed. “Why, they died long ago,” she answered. “They belonged to ancient times. To-day there are no heroes like them; yet the men of Greece are strong and brave still—there are none in the world like unto them. But come, the games will soon begin, and we must be there. Are you to run in the torch race?”
“What’s that?”
“That’s the race the girls run. I shall be in—I mean to win it, and to hear the people cheer me, and to wear a crown of flowers....”