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and he stepped to her side, for he was near, and she took his hand.

"O Zeus," she called, "this is the man whom I love and who loves me, this man whom I hold by the hand. Him have I chosen for my mate. Is it your will that he be my husband?"

Thereupon the Bough of Affirmation buzzed with the gust that whipped all its branches and tore at its leaves, and the Tree of Happiness, and the Tree of Prosperity and the Lovers' Oak sang with all their branches together and the deep booming drone from the Tree of Kings and the Divine Oak sounded strongly.

And all the people cheered. Whereupon thereafter they chanted a hymn of Thanksgiving and that very night Polyteles held the wedding festivities of Dexibios and his daughter Thessa.