"She did mean it," replied Eudora, with angry emphasis. "She is always describing her pompous sacrifices to Demeter; because she knows I am excluded from the temple. I hope I shall live to see her proud heart humbled."
"Nay, Eudora," said Philothea, turning mournfully away: "Your feelings are strangely embittered; the calm light of reason is totally obscured by the wild torch-dance of your passions. Methinks hatred itself need wish Hipparete no worse fate than to be the wife of so bold and bad a man as Alcibiades."
"Oh, Philothea! I wonder you can call him bold," rejoined Eudora. "He looks steadily at no one; his eyelashes ever rest on his face, like those of a modest maiden."
"Aye, Eudora—but it is not the expression of a sinless heart, timidly retiring within the shrine of its own purity; it is the shrinking of a conscience that has something to conceal. Little as we know about the evils of the world, we have heard enough of Alcibiades, to be aware that Hipparete has much need to seek the protection of her patron goddess."
"She had better worship in the temple of Helen, at Therapne," answered Eudora, sharply: "The journey might not prove altogether hopeless; for that temple is said to confer beauty on the ugliest woman that ever entered it." As the peevish damsel said this, she gave a proud glance at her own lovely person, in the mirror, before which a lamp was burning.
Philothea had often seen her friend in petulant moods; but she had never before known her to evince so much bitterness, or so long resist the soothing influence of kindness. Unwilling to contend with passions she could not subdue, and would not flatter, she remained for some moments in serious silence.
The expression of her countenance touched Eudora's quick feelings; and she said, in an humble tone, "I know I am doing wrong, Philothea, but I cannot help it."
Her friend calmly replied, "If you believe you cannot help it, you deceive yourself; and if you do not believe it, you had better not have said it."
"Now you are angry with me," exclaimed the sensitive maiden; and she burst into tears.
Philothea passed her arm affectionately round her waist, saying, "I am not angry with you, Eudora; but while I love you, I cannot and ought not to love the bad feelings you cherish. Believe me, my dear friend, the insults of others can never make us wretched, or resentful, if all is right within our own hearts. The viper that stings us is always nourished within us. Moreover, I believe, dearest Eudora, that half your wrongs are in your own imagination. I too am a foreigner; but I have been very happy within the walls of Athens."