For the future all your letters will be sent by Syria.
"You will ask me perhaps, why I have told you this long story, which has so much less interest for you than any other home news.

I answer: to prepare you for your father's state.

Would you have recognized the cheerful, happy, careless Amasis in that gloomy answer to his Samian friend?
"Alas, my husband has good reason to be sad, and since you left us, my own eyes have seldom been free from tears.

My time is passed either at the sick-bed of your sister or in comforting your father and guiding his steps; and though much in need of sleep I am now taking advantage of night to write these lines.
"Here I was interrupted by the nurses, calling me to your sister Tachot, your own true friend.
"How often the dear child has called you in her feverish delirium; and how carefully she treasures your likeness in wax, that wonderful portrait which bears evidence not only of the height to which Greek art has risen, but of the master hand of the great Theodorus.

To-morrow it will be sent to AEgina, to be copied in gold, as the soft wax becomes injured from frequent contact with your sister's burning hands and lips.
"And now, my daughter, you must summon all your courage to hear what I need all my strength of mind to tell-the sad story of the fate which the gods have decreed for our house.
"For three days after you left us Tachot wept incessantly.