Have they not, in so doing, made laws against their children, whom women are to rear ?--against the husbands, of whom women are to be the friends, nay, sometimes the advisers ?' Ione stopped short suddenly, and her face was suffused with the most enchanting blushes.

She feared lest her enthusiasm had led her too far; yet she feared the austere Arbaces less than the courteous Glaucus, for she loved the last, and it was not the custom of the Greeks to allow their women (at least such of their women as they most honored) the same liberty and the same station as those of Italy enjoyed.

She felt, therefore, a thrill of delight as Glaucus earnestly replied: 'Ever mayst thou think thus, Ione--ever be your pure heart your unerring guide! Happy it had been for Greece if she had given to the chaste the same intellectual charms that are so celebrated amongst the less worthy of her women.

No state falls from freedom--from knowledge, while your sex smile only on the free, and by appreciating, encourage the wise.' Arbaces was silent, for it was neither his part to sanction the sentiment of Glaucus, nor to condemn that of Ione, and, after a short and embarrassed conversation, Glaucus took his leave of Ione.
When he was gone, Arbaces, drawing his seat nearer to the fair Neapolitan's, said in those bland and subdued tones, in which he knew so well how to veil the mingled art and fierceness of his character: 'Think not, my sweet pupil, if so I may call you, that I wish to shackle that liberty you adorn while you assume: but which, if not greater, as you rightly observe, than that possessed by the Roman women, must at least be accompanied by great circumspection, when arrogated by one unmarried.

Continue to draw crowds of the gay, the brilliant, the wise themselves, to your feet--continue to charm them with the conversation of an Aspasia, the music of an Erinna--but reflect, at least, on those censorious tongues which can so easily blight the tender reputation of a maiden; and while you provoke admiration, give, I beseech you, no victory to envy.' 'What mean you, Arbaces ?' said Ione, in an alarmed and trembling voice: 'I know you are my friend, that you desire only my honour and my welfare.