"This vase is of course an illustration of the well-known passage in the _Odyssey_, Book 21.103.I take Mr.Samuel Butler's translation, which is lively and modern and much to be preferred to the heavy archaisms of the other fellows."' Elizabeth gave a slight cough.

The Squire looked at her sharply.
'Oh, you think that's not dignified?
Well, have it as you like.' Elizabeth altered the phrase to 'other translators.' The Squire resumed.

'"Antinous, one of the suitors, is speaking: 'We could see her working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches again by torchlight.

She fooled us in this way for three years, and we never found her out, but as time wore on, and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids, who knew what she was doing, told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it, whether she would or no....' I tell you, we never heard of such a woman; we know all about Tyro, Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your mother--any one of them."-- And yet she was only undoing her own work!--she was not forcing a grown man to undo his!' said the Squire, with a sudden rush of voice and speech.
Elizabeth looked up astonished.
'Am I to put that down ?' The Squire threw away the book he was holding.

His shining white hair seemed positively to bristle on his head, his long legs twined and untwined themselves.
'Don't pretend, please, that you don't know what part you've been playing in this affair!' he said with sarcasm.