"Very well, mother," she replies, "and I will bring in all about you and father, and how I go out for a washing-day with the maids,"--and she kept her word, as I will presently show you. I should tell you that Ulysses, having got away from the goddess Calypso, with whom he had been living for some seven or eight years on a lonely and very distant island in mid-ocean, is shipwrecked on the coast of Phaeacia, the chief town of which is Scheria. After swimming some forty-eight hours in the water he effects a landing at the mouth of a stream, and, not having a rag of clothes on his back, covers himself up under a heap of dried leaves and goes to sleep. I will now translate from the Odyssey itself. "So here Ulysses slept, worn out with labour and sorrow; but Minerva went off to the chief town of the Phaeacians, a people who used to live in Hypereia near the wicked Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes were stronger than they and plundered them, so Nausithous settled them in Scheria far from those who would loot them. He ran a wall round about the city, built houses and temples, and allotted the lands among his people; but he was gathered to his fathers, and the good king Alcinous was now reigning. To his palace then Minerva hastened that she might help Ulysses to get home. "She went straight to the painted bedroom of Nausicaa, who was daughter to King Alcinous, and lovely as a goddess. Near her there slept two maids-in-waiting, both very pretty, one on either side of the doorway, which was closed with a beautifully made door. She took the form of the famous Captain Dumas's daughter, who was a bosom friend of Nausicaa and just her own age; then coming into the room like a breath of wind she stood near the head of the bed and said-- "'Nausicaa, what could your mother have been about to have such a lazy daughter? Here are your clothes all lying in disorder, yet you are going to be married almost directly, and should not only be well-dressed yourself, but should see that those about you look clean and tidy also. This is the way to make people speak well of you, and it will please your father and mother, so suppose we make to-morrow a washing day, and begin the first thing in the morning. I will come and help you, for all the best young men among your own people are courting you, and you are not going to remain a maid much longer. Ask your father, then, to have a horse and cart ready for us at daybreak to take the linen and baskets, and you can ride too, which will be much pleasanter for you than walking, for the washing ground is a long way out of the town.'