"But, Cnemon! what a sweet expectation did you raise in me when you promised to show me these whom I so fondly loved! and how have you deceived me! You winged me with hope to expect that they would presently be here, and exacted a reward for these good tidings; but, lo! evening and night have overtaken us, and they nowhere appear."--"Raise up your spirits," said Cnemon, "and have a good heart; I assure you they will soon arrive. Perhaps they have met with some impediment by the way, for they intended to arrive much earlier. But I would not shew them to you, if they were here, till you had paid me the whole of my reward; if, therefore, you are in haste to see them, perform your promise, and finish your story."--"It is now," replied Calasiris, "become a little irksome to me, as it will call up disagreeable remembrances; and I thought, besides, that you must by this time be tired with listening to so tedious a tale; but, since you seem a good listener, and fond of hearing stories worth the telling, I will resume my narration where I left it off. But let us first light a torch, and make our libations to the gods who preside over the night;[5] so that, having performed our devotions, we may spend, without interruption, as much as we please of it in such discourses as we like." A maid, at the old man's command, brought in a lighted taper; and he poured out a libation, calling upon all the gods, and particularly upon Mercury; beseeching them to grant him pleasant dreams, and that those whom he most loved might appear to him in his sleep. Calasiris then proceeded in this manner: "After, Cnemon, that the procession had thrice compassed the sepulchre of Neoptolemus, and that both men and women had raised over it their appropriate shout and cry;[6] on a signal being given, the oxen, the sheep, the goats, were slaughtered at once, as if the sacrifice had been performed by a single hand. Heaps of wood were piled on an immense altar; and the victims being placed thereon, the priest of Apollo was desired to light the pile, and begin the libation. "'It belongs, indeed, to me,' said Charicles, 'to make the libation; but let the chief of the sacred embassy receive the torch from the hands of Diana's priestess, and light the pile; for such has always been our custom.' Having said this, he performed his part of the ceremony, and Theagenes received the torch from Chariclea. From what now happened, my dear Cnemon, we may infer that there is something divine in the soul, and allied to a superior nature; for their first glance at each other was such, as if each of their souls acknowledged its partner, and hastened to mingle with one which was worthy of it.[7]