“We really don’t know anything about them,” said Rachel, apologetically. “You see we live in a different country, and—well, in a different time.”
She couldn’t help adding this, in her desire to defend herself from the charge of ignorance, but the boy took no notice of the last remark.
“Come with me, and by degrees it may be I shall enlighten you,” he said, still in a mocking voice.
He turned quickly, and Rachel and Diana, after one backward glance at the snow-white temple adorned with its perfect sculpture, followed him meekly down the hill. In a few moments they found themselves threading their way through the narrow streets of the city of Athens. These streets were bounded on either side by blank walls, broken here and there by a door.
“But where are the houses?” enquired Diana presently.
“These doors lead to our houses,” returned the boy, tapping one of them as he passed.
“There aren’t any windows!” objected Rachel.
“Would you have windows upon the street?” said Agis. “An idea comic indeed, O maidens!”
The children were too occupied with the strangeness of everything around them to reply to this. Every now and then they emerged from narrow roads between walls into a great square, and here the surrounding buildings were magnificent. There were long colonnades where people, dressed more or less in the same fashion as Agis, lounged or walked, and often in the midst of the square they saw beautiful statues.
“Look!” said Diana presently, pointing to a garland of leaves hung upon the knocker of a door. “Why is that wreath put there?” They had turned into another narrow street by this time.