"Longer than you think. I cannot tell how often I have seen spring swell into summer, mellow into autumn, and descend into winter, for the years in their seasons are alike to me; but, I suppose, more than a thousand times." Simon stared agape. "More than a thousand times? Pray, how old may you be, young woman?" "I cannot tell," the girl answered, thoughtfully. "I do not think of time. Why should I, being come to my full growth? Time will change me no more. I shall be as I am for always." Simon frowned in dubiety. "What is your name, young woman, and where do you belong?" "My name is Argathona. I belong to the forest. I am a dryad." Simon's education had been something neglected, and he had no idea what a dryad might be. But he was always superstitious, and now suddenly suspicious. "Are you a fairy?" he gasped, fearfully. Argathona shook her head, and waved the myrtle-bough as if to dissipate his fears. "I have naught to do with the fairies, nor they with me. I am the daughter of a dryad, but my father was a mortal man." "Like me," Simon suggested. Simon plumed himself on his good looks, but the dryad disagreed. "I do not think he can have been like you, for my mother said he was beautiful." Simplicity's frank arrow quivered in vanity's ample target. Simon swallowed an oath. "Oh, oh," he thought, "this is some rustic minx who is making game of me. Well, I'll humor her whimsy; perhaps we may end with a kiss." He went on aloud, "When were you born, bonnie lassie?" "Long ago," the girl answered, gravely, "when the old gods still dwelt in Hellas." Simon's bulk was as full of stifled laughter as a pillow is full of feathers. "Perhaps you remember the old gods," he hinted, with a grin. The girl's calm eyes widened with wonder at his folly. "Assuredly I do. How could I forget my earliest friends? They loved me so dearly that though I was the child of a mortal they gave me the gift of immortal youth." Simon gave a long whistle. "So you are immortal?" "My mother was a true dryad," Argathona answered, "born in a tree, living the tree's life, and dying when the tree died. But she loved an Athenian and bore me, and as there was no tree in all the woodland that I could call my own, Zeus gave me this gift to live forever so long as a tree should grow in Greece." "And your parents?" Simon inquired, politely. He was so taken with the girl that he would not quarrel with her crazy tale. "My father died long ages ago," Argathona said, "when I was a baby. He died in fight upon the plain of Troy, died by the hand of Paris, the lover of Helena. Hermes brought the news to my mother here in the wood, and my mother wept sorely and sighed in vain to die. This was long ago, long before the time came for the gods to go." She sighed as she spoke, as one who lingers with tender, pathetic memories. Simon continued his humoring, though the girl was flagrantly insane. "When was that, pray you?"