The neighbours hearing the cries ran out of their houses and shook their heads at Nikander’s terrible child. Poor Medon was like to drop into the earth for shame. Yet amid all the tumult he kept thinking of a mountain stream which had been dammed back but which one day broke through and rushed away—a mighty flood. Nikander’s alarmed family—wife, slaves, and all—met them at the door. “Now for what do the gods punish me?” cried poor Melantho, “that I should have such a child! Look at her eyes. She is beside herself. Baltè, hold her!” But as Medon set down the little raging tumult old Baltè let her escape. Up the stairs she flew, her voice like a clarion. “Leave her be, dear mistress,” pleaded wise old Baltè. “Remember, she is a twin child and it does grieve her sore to be separate from her twin.” In the farthest room of the house Theria found refuge and slammed the door. Here she threw herself face downward and beat the floor with her fists; yes, and kicked, too, as her childish grief surged to and fro within her. Her strength spent itself at last and she fell to sobbing, suffering now as she had not done amid the curious enjoyment of loud woe. Her thoughts now were not of the school nor of Dryas, but of her father, the strange horror that her father should have done this and not seem to care. Always before this had he mended hurts, not made them. Facing this mystery her dearest faith tottered. Yet after a while even this dread grew faint. Thoughts faded into fancies. Then she fell asleep. * * * * * She must have slept a long while for she awoke strangely quiet. Her refuge place was a storeroom. Chests stood about full of things used only at festivals. There were also great earthen jars of grain and wine. The room was stone floored, stone walled, but its far end was hewn into the native rock. Nikander’s house, standing on a side hill, was two storied in front but here at the back melted to the roof in the hillside. This room had a little low window—the only other window in the house besides that in Nikander’s room. To this window the little girl crept, and leaned her two elbows on the ledge, her chin in her hands. The window showed her only the side lane which led up between the houses to lose itself in the hill above. This lane was wider than most of the lanes in Delphi, for it had been chosen by one of the mountain streams for a bed, and now in the springtime the foaming waters dashed downward between the house walls beside the footpath.