Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-09-01

promised him power, and honor, and
money, if he would do as he wished; more
and more money. and, as the king refused,
still more and more money he offered, and
at last the king almost consented.
But it happened that when Aristagoras
had come into the presence of the king the
kings little daughter was standing by his
side with her hand in his. Aristagoras
wanted to send her away, for he knew
very well that it was much harder to in
duce man to do something wrong when
there is dear little child at his side. But
the king had said. mo, say what you
have ID say in her presence, too" And
so little Gorge had sat at her fathers feet,
looking up irto his face with her innocent
eyes and listening intently to all that was
said She felt that something was wrong.
and when she saw her father look troubled
and hesitate. and cast down his eyes, she
knew the strange visitor was trying to
make him do something be did not quite
want to. She stole her little hand softly
into her fathers and said:
Papa, come away, come, or this strange
man will make you do wrong"
This made the king feel strong again,
and clasping the little maids hand tightly
in his own, he rose and left the tempter,
and went away with his child who had
saved him and his country from dishonor.
Gorge was only 10 years old. but she
was worthy to be kings daughter, be-
cause, being good and true herself, she
| helped her father to be good and true al
! so.
| When she grew up to be woman she
became the wife of a king, and then showed
! herself as noble queen as she had been
a princess. Her husband was that King
Leonidas who stood in the narrow pass of
Thermopylae with his small army and
| fought back the great hosts of the Per-
SLAMS, until he and all his heroic band
were killed. But before this happened
there was time when the great Persian
army was coming to try and destroy them,
and friend OF theirs who was a prisoner
in the country where the great Xerxes
| lived, wishing to warn the Spartans of
the coming of the Persans, so they might
prepare, sent a messenger to King
Leonidas. But when the messenger ar
rived all he had to show for his message
was a bare, white, waxen table. The
king and all the lords puzzled over this
strange table long time, but could make
nothing out of it. At last they began to
think it was done for jest and did not
mean anything.
But just then the young Queen Gorge
said: Let me take it, and after looking
it all over she exclaimed, There must be
some writing under the wax
Tney scratched away the wax from the
tablet, and there, sure enough, written on
| the wood beneath, was the message of
the Grecian prisoner and his warning to
King Leonidas
Thus Gorge helped her country second
time, tor if The Spartans had not known
that the army was coming they could not
have warned the other Kingdoms and per-
haps the Persians would not have been
conquered. But, as it was, Leonidas and
the other kings called their armies togeth-
Ell and when the Persian host came sweep
ing over the plains the Greeks were ready
to meet them and to fight and die for
their beautiful country.
So this one little maid of hundreds of
years ago, princess and queen, helped to
save her father from disgrace and her
father from ruin. And we may feel sure
that she was strong and true to the last,
even when her brave husband. Leonidas,
lay dead in the fearless pass of Thermo-
pyl@, and she was left to mourn in the
royal palace at Sparta.-Sprinqfeld Re-
publican.