CHAPTER III.
LYSANDER.
As Xanthe approached her father's house, Semestre's call and the gay
notes of a monaulus--[A musical instrument, played like our flageolet or
clarinet]--greeted her.
A conjurer had obtained admittance, and was showing his laughing audience
the tricks of his trained cocks and hens.
He was a dwarfish, bow-legged little man, with a short neck, on which
rested a big head with a very prominent forehead, that shaded his small
piercing eyes like a balcony.
The feathered actors lived in a two-wheeled cart, drawn from village to
village, and city to city, by a tiny, gayly-decked donkey.
Three cocks and four hens were now standing on the roof of the cart,
looking very comical, for their clever owner, who doubtless knew what
pleases the eyes of children and peasants, had colored their white
feathers, here and there, with brilliant red and glaring yellow.
Beside the cart stood a pale, sorrowful-looking boy, playing a merry tune
on the monaulus. Lysander, Xanthe's father, had been helped out of the
house into the sunlight, and, seated in his arm-chair of polished olive-
wood, was gazing at the show.
As soon as he saw his daughter, he beckoned to her, and stroking her
hair, while she pressed her lips to his forehead, said:
"An amusing sight! The two hens obey the little man as if they were
dutiful children.
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