"More eloquent than precise, I think," said Paulus.
"Yet sufficiently precise," added Aglais, "to leave us in no doubt at all who is meant by it. It must be young Dionysius; it must be Dion."
"That is the very name!" exclaimed the hostess.
"My mother knows him," said Paulus. "My sister and I have often heard of him; so have thousands; but we have not seen him. It is he who carried away all the honors of the great Lyceum at Athens on the left bank of the Ilissus."
"The right bank, brother," said Agatha; "don't you remember, the day we embarked at the Piræus somebody showed it to us, just opposite Diana Agrotera, which is on the left bank?"
"It is all the same," said Paulus.
"Mother, just tell Paulus if left and right are all the same," said Agatha. "That is like Paulus. They are not the same; they never were the same."
"All the ladies at the Mamurran palace," resumed the hostess, "make toilets against him."
"Toils, you mean," said Paulus.
"Yes, toils," continued the hostess. "They are intended as toils for him; they are great toils and labors for the poor girls; the ornatrius and they are toilers for the fair dames themselves."