We must save by drops, while we own more gnarled olive-trees than there are days in the year.

How many jars of oil might be had from the fruit that has dropped on the ground alone! The harvest at neighbor Protarch's was over long ago, and if I were like Lysander--" "There would probably be an end of saving," cried the house-keeper, interrupting the girl.

"Well, I confess it wasn't easy for me to part with the golden gift of the gods, but what could I do?
Our master's brother, Alciphron, wanted it, and there was a great barter.

Alciphron is clever, and has a lucky hand, in which the liquid gold we press from the olives with so much toil, and keep so carefully, becomes coined metal.

He's like my own child, for I was his nurse.