Even Xanthe must not interrupt us." "You won't stay alone, for Aphrodite and all the Loves will soon join such a pair," cried the girl, as she sprang across the threshold, banging the door loudly behind her.
"What did she say ?" asked Semestre, looking suspiciously after the maiden.

"The vexations one has to endure from those girls, Jason, can't be described, especially since they've grown deaf." "Deaf ?" asked the old man in astonishment.
"Yes, they scarcely understand a word correctly, and even Xanthe, who has just reached her seventeenth year, is beginning to be hard of hearing." A smile flitted over Jason's face, and, raising his voice to a louder tone, he said, flatteringly: "Every one can't have senses as keen as yours, Semestre; have you time to listen to me ?" The house-keeper nodded assent, leaned against the column nearest the hearth, rested both hands on her staff, and bent forward to intimate that she would listen attentively, and did not wish to lose a single word.
Jason stood directly opposite, and, while thus measuring each other with their eyes, Semestre looked like a cautious cat awaiting the attack of the less nimble but stronger shepherd's dog.
"You know," Jason began, "that when, long ago, we two, you as nurse and I as steward, came to this place, our present masters' fine estates belonged undivided to their father.

The gods gave the old man three sons.

The oldest, Alciphron, whom you nursed and watched through his boyhood, went to a foreign land, became a great merchant in Messina, and, after his father's death, received a large inheritance in gold, silver and the city house at the port.

The country estates were divided between Protarch and Lysander.