Page:The vintage; a romance of the Greek war of independence (IA vintageromanceof00bensrich).pdf/238

 slept before, with no cause to give? To-morrow you shall go back, and say how pleased your novice brother was to see you—and the lie be laid to the account of the Turk, who fill our mouths perforce with these things—and how you had honor of the monks. Give your mule to the lad, my danghter. It shall be well cared for."

So Maria had her chance, and took it. An adventure and a quest for the good of her country were offered her, and she embraced them, For the moment she rose to the rank of those who work personally for the good of countries and great communities, and then passed back into her level peasant life again. Goura, as it turned out, took no part in the deeds that were coming. Its land was land of the monastery, and the Turks never visited its sequestered valley with cruelty, oppression, or their lustful appetites. Yet the great swelling news that came to the inhabitants of that little mountain village, only as in the ears of children a sea-shell speaks of remotely breaking waves, had to Maria a reality and a nearness that it lacked to others, and her life was crowned with the knowledge that she had for a moment laid her finger harmoniously on the harp which made that glorious symphony.

Mitsos' work at Patras was easily done. Germanos was delighted with the idea of the forged letter from the Turk, and was frankly surprised to hear that the notion was born of the boy's brain, Being something of a scholar, he quoted very elegantly the kindred notion of Athene, who was wisdom, springing full-grown from the brain of Zeus, for Mitsos' idea, so he was pleased to say, was complete in itself, mature from its birth. Mitsos did not know the legend to which the primate referred, and so he merely expressed his gratification that the scheme was considered satisfactory. The affair of the