there is no more than might perhaps be contained in half an ordinary egg-
shell, but it looks fresh and sweet, and shines in clear, golden purity.
The girl goes to the door, pulls in the platter, and, as she measures the
allowance with a glance, exclaims half in lament and half in reproach:

"So little! and is that for both of us?"

As she speaks her expressive features have changed again and her flashing
eyes are directed towards the door with a glance of as much dismay as
though the sun and stars had been suddenly extinguished; and yet her only
grief is the smallness of the loaf, which certainly is hardly large
enough to stay the hunger of one young creature--and two must share it;
what is a mere nothing in one man's life, to another may be of great
consequence and of terrible significance.

The reproachful complaint is heard by the messenger outside the door, for
the old woman who shoved in the trencher over the threshold answers
quickly but not crossly.

"Nothing more to-day, Irene."

"It is disgraceful," cries the girl, her eyes filling with tears, "every
day the loaf grows smaller, and if we were sparrows we should not have
enough to satisfy us.  You know what is due to us and I will never cease
to complain and petition.  Serapion shall draw up a fresh address for us,
and when the king knows how shamefully we are treated--"

"Aye! when he knows," interrupted the old woman.  But the cry of the poor
is tossed about by many winds before it reaches the king's ear.  I might
find a shorter way than that for you and your sister if fasting comes so
much amiss to you.  Girls with faces like hers and yours, my little
Irene, need never come to want."

"And pray what is my face like?"  asked the girl, and her pretty features
once more seemed to catch a gleam of sunshine.

"Why, so handsome that you may always venture to show it beside your
sister's; and yesterday, in the procession, the great Roman sitting by
the queen looked as often at her as at Cleopatra herself.  If you had
been there too he would not have had a glance for the queen, for you are
a pretty thing, as I can tell you.  And there are many girls would sooner
hear those words then have a whole loaf--besides you have a mirror I
suppose, look in that next time you are hungry."

The old woman's shuffling steps retreated again and the girl snatched up
the golden jar, opened the door a little way to let in the daylight and
looked at herself in the bright surface; but the curve of the costly vase
showed her features all distorted, and she gaily breathed on the hideous
travestie that met her eyes, so that it was all blurred out by the
moisture.  Then she smilingly put down the jar, and opening the chest
took from it a small metal mirror into which she looked again and yet
again, arranging her shining hair first in one way and then in another;
and she only laid it down when she remembered a certain bunch of violets
which had attracted her attention when she first woke, and which must
have been placed in their saucer of water by her sister some time the day
before.  Without pausing to consider she took up the softly scented
blossoms, dried their green stems on her dress, took up the mirror again
and stuck the flowers in her hair.

How bright her eyes were now, and how contentedly she put out her hand
for the loaf.  And how fair were the visions that rose before her young
fancy as she broke off one piece after another and hastily eat them after
slightly moistening them with the fresh oil.  Once, at the festival of
the New Year, she had had a glimpse into the king's tent, and there she
had seen men and women feasting as they reclined on purple cushions.  Now
she dreamed of tables covered with costly vessels, was served in fancy by
boys crowned with flowers, heard the music of flutes and harps and--for
she was no more than a child and had such a vigorous young appetite--
pictured herself as selecting the daintiest and sweetest morsels out of
dishes of solid gold and eating till she was satisfied, aye so perfectly
satisfied that the very last mouthful of bread and the very last drop of
oil had disappeared.

But so soon as her hand found nothing more on the empty trencher the
bright illusion vanished, and she looked with dismay into the empty oil-
cup and at the place where just now the bread had been.

"Ah!" she sighed from the bottom of her heart; then she turned the
platter over as though it might be possible to find some more bread and
oil on the other side of it, but finally shaking her head she sat looking
thoughtfully into her lap; only for a few minutes however, for the door
opened and the slim form of her sister Klea appeared, the sister whose
meagre rations she had dreamily eaten up, and Klea had been sitting up
half the night sewing for her, and then had gone out before sunrise to
fetch water from the Well of the Sun for the morning sacrifice at the
altar of Serapis.

Klea greeted her sister with a loving glance but without speaking; she
seemed too exhausted for words and she wiped the drops from her forehead
with the linen veil that covered the back of her head as she seated
herself on the lid of the chest.  Irene immediately glanced at the empty
trencher, considering whether she had best confess her guilt to the
wearied girl and beg for forgiveness, or divert the scolding she had
deserved by some jest, as she had often succeeded in doing before.  This
seemed the easier course and she adopted it at once; she went up to her
sister quickly, but not quite unconcernedly, and said with mock gravity:

"Look here, Klea, don't you notice anything in me?  I must look like a
crocodile that has eaten a whole hippopotamus, or one of the sacred
snakes after it has swallowed a rabbit.  Only think when I had eaten my
own bread I found yours between my teeth--quite unexpectedly--but now--"

Klea, thus addressed, glanced at the empty platter and interrupted her
sister with a low-toned exclamation.  "Oh! I was so hungry."

The words expressed no reproof, only utter exhaustion, and as the young
criminal looked at her sister and saw her sitting there, tired and worn
out but submitting to the injury that had been done her without a word of
complaint, her heart, easily touched, was filled with compunction and
regret.  She burst into tears and threw herself on the ground before her,
clasping her knees and crying, in a voice broken with sobs:

"Oh Klea! poor, dear Klea, what have I done! but indeed I did not mean
any harm.  I don't know how it happened.  Whatever I feel prompted to do
I do, I can't help doing it, and it is not till it is done that I begin
to know whether it was right or wrong.  You sat up and worried yourself
for me, and this is how I repay you--I am a bad girl!  But you shall not
go hungry--no, you shall not."

"Never mind; never mind," said the elder, and she stroked her sister's
brown hair with a loving hand.

But as she did so she came upon the violets fastened among the shining
tresses.  Her lips quivered and her weary expression changed as she
touched the flowers and glanced at the empty saucer in which she had
carefully placed them the clay before.  Irene at once perceived the
change in her sister's face, and thinking only that she was surprised at
her pretty adornment, she said gaily:  "Do you think the flowers becoming
to me?"

Klea's hand was already extended to take the violets out of the brown
plaits, for her sister was still kneeling before her, but at this
question her arm dropped, and she said more positively and distinctly
than she had yet spoken and in a voice, whose sonorous but musical tones
were almost masculine and certainly remarkable in a girl:

"The bunch of flowers belongs to me; but keep it till it is faded, by
mid-day, and then return it to me."

"It belongs to you?"  repeated the younger girl, raising her eyes in
surprise to her sister, for to this hour what had been Klea's had been
hers also.  "But I always used to take the flowers you brought home; what
is there special in these?"

"They are only violets like any other violets," replied Klea coloring
deeply.  "But the queen has worn them."

"The queen!"  cried her sister springing to her feet and clasping her
hands in astonishment.  "She gave you the flowers?  And you never told me
till now?  To be sure when you came home from the procession yesterday
you only asked me how my foot was and whether my clothes were whole and
then not another mortal word did you utter.  Did Cleopatra herself give
you this bunch?"

"How should she?"  retorted Klea.  "One of her escort threw them to me;
but drop the subject pray!  Give me the water, please, my mouth is
parched and I can hardly speak for thirst."

The bright color dyed her cheeks again as she spoke, but Irene did not
observe it, for--delighted to make up for her evil doings by performing
some little service--she ran to fetch the water-jar; while Klea filled
and emptied her wooden bowl she said, gracefully lifting a small foot, to
show to her sister:

"Look, the cut is almost healed and I can wear my sandal again.  Now I
shall tie it on and go and ask Serapion for some bread for you and
perhaps he will give us a few dates.  Please loosen the straps for me a
little, here, round the ankle, my skin is so thin and tender that a
little thing hurts me which you would hardly feel.  At mid-day I will go
with you and help fill the jars for the altar, and later in the day I can
accompany you in the procession which was postponed from yesterday.  If
only the queen and the great foreigner should come again to look on at
it!  That would be splendid!  Now, I am going, and before you have drunk
the last bowl of water you shall have some bread, for I will coax the old
man so prettily that he can't say 'no.'"

Irene opened the door, and as the broad sunlight fell in it lighted up
tints of gold in her chestnut hair, and her sister looking after her
could almost fancy that the sunbeams had got entangled with the waving
glory round her head.  The bunch of violets was the last thing she took
note of as Irene went out into the open air; then she was alone and she
shook her head gently as she said to herself:  "I give up everything to
her and what I have left she takes from me.  Three times have I met the
Roman, yesterday he gave me the violets, and I did want to keep those for
myself--and now--"  As she spoke she clasped the bowl she still held in
her hand closely to her and her lips trembled pitifully, but only for an
instant; she drew herself up and said firmly:  "But it is all as it
should be."

Then she was silent; she set down the water-jar on the chest by her side,
passed the back of her hand across her forehead as if her head were
aching, then, as she sat gazing down dreamily into her lap, her weary
head presently fell on her shoulder and she was asleep.




CHAPTER II.

The low brick building of which the sisters' room formed a part, was
called the Pastophorium, and it was occupied also by other persons
attached to the service of the temple, and by numbers of pilgrims.  These
assembled here from all parts of Egypt, and were glad to pass a night
under the protection of the sanctuary.

Irene, when she quitted her sister, went past many doors--which had been
thrown open after sunrise--hastily returning the greetings of many
strange as well as familiar faces, for all glanced after her kindly as
though to see her thus early were an omen of happy augury, and she soon
reached an outbuilding adjoining the northern end of the Pastophorium;
here there was no door, but at the level of about a man's height from
the ground there were six unclosed windows opening on the road.  From the
first of these the pale and much wrinkled face of an old man looked down
on the girl as she approached.  She shouted up to him in cheerful accents
the greeting familiar to the Hellenes "Rejoice!"  But he, without moving
his lips, gravely and significantly signed to her with his lean hand and
with a glance from his small, fixed and expressionless eyes that she
should wait, and then handed out to her a wooden trencher on which lay a
few dates and half a cake of bread.

"For the altar of the god?"  asked the girl.  The old man nodded assent,
and Irene went on with her small load, with the assurance of a person who
knows exactly what is required of her; but after going a few steps and
before she had reached the last of the six windows she paused, for she
plainly heard voices and steps, and presently, at the end of the
Pastophorium towards which she was proceeding and which opened into a
small grove of acacias dedicated to Serapis--which was of much greater
extent outside the enclosing wall--appeared a little group of men whose
appearance attracted her attention; but she was afraid to go on towards
the strangers, so, leaning close up to the wall of the houses, she
awaited their departure, listening the while to what they were saying.

In front of these early visitors to the temple walked a man with a long
staff in his right hand speaking to the two gentlemen who followed, with
the air of a professional guide, who is accustomed to talk as if he were
reading to his audience out of an invisible book, and whom the hearers
are unwilling to interrupt with questions, because they know that his
knowledge scarcely extends beyond exactly what he says.  Of his two
remarkable-looking hearers one was wrapped in a long and splendid robe
and wore a rich display of gold chains and rings, while the other wore
nothing over his short chiton but a Roman toga thrown over his left
shoulder.

His richly attired companion was an old man with a full and beardless
face and thin grizzled hair.  Irene gazed at him with admiration and
astonishment, but when she had feasted her eyes on the stuffs and
ornaments he wore, she fixed them with much greater interest and
attention on the tall and youthful figure at his side.

"Like Hui, the cook's fat poodle, beside a young lion," thought she to
herself, as she noted the bustling step of the one and the independent
and elastic gait of the other.  She felt irresistibly tempted to mimic
the older man, but this audacious impulse was soon quelled for scarcely
had the guide explained to the Roman that it was here that those pious
recluses had their cells who served the god in voluntary captivity, as
being consecrated to Serapis, and that they received their food through
those windows--here he pointed upwards with his staff when suddenly a
shutter, which the cicerone of this ill-matched pair had touched with his
stick, flew open with as much force and haste as if a violent gust of
wind had caught it, and flung it back against the wall.--And no less
suddenly a man's head-of ferocious aspect and surrounded by a shock of
gray hair like a lion's mane--looked out of the window and shouted to him
who had knocked, in a deep and somewhat overloud voice.

"If my shutter had been your back, you impudent rascal, your stick would
have hit the right thing.  Or if I had a cudgel between my teeth instead
of a tongue, I would exercise it on you till it was as tired as that of a
preacher who has threshed his empty straw to his congregation for three
mortal hours.  Scarcely is the sun risen when we are plagued by the
parasitical and inquisitive mob.  Why! they will rouse us at midnight
next, and throw stones at our rotten old shutters.  The effects of my
last greeting lasted you for three weeks--to-day's I hope may act a
little longer.  You, gentlemen there, listen to me.  Just as the raven
follows an army to batten on the dead, so that fellow there stalks on in
front of strangers in order to empty their pockets--and you, who call
yourself an interpreter, and in learning Greek have forgotten the little
Egyptian you ever knew, mark this: When you have to guide strangers take
them to see the Sphinx, or to consult the Apis in the temple of Ptah, or
lead them to the king's beast-garden at Alexandria, or the taverns at
Hanopus, but don't bring them here, for we are neither pheasants, nor
flute-playing women, nor miraculous beasts, who take a pleasure in being
stared at.  You, gentlemen, ought to choose a better guide than this
chatter-mag that keeps up its perpetual rattle when once you set it
going.  As to yourselves I will tell you one thing: Inquisitive eyes are
intrusive company, and every prudent house holder guards himself against
them by keeping his door shut."

Irene shrank back and flattened herself against the pilaster which
concealed her, for the shutter closed again with a slam, the recluse
pulling it to with a rope attached to its outer edge, and he was hidden
from the gaze of the strangers; but only for an instant, for the rusty
hinges on which the shutter was hanging were not strong enough to bear
such violent treatment, and slowly giving way it was about to fall.  The
blustering hermit stretched out an arm to support it and save it; but it
was heavy, and his efforts would not have succeeded had not the young man
in Roman dress given his assistance and lifted up the shutter with his
hand and shoulder, without any effort, as if it were made of willow laths
instead of strong planks.

"A little higher still," shouted the recluse to his assistant.  "Let us
set the thing on its edge!  so, push away, a little more.  There, I have
propped up the wretched thing and there it may lie.  If the bats pay me a
visit to-night I will think of you and give them your best wishes."

"You may save yourself that trouble," replied the young man with cool
dignity.  "I will send you a carpenter who shall refix the shutter, and
we offer you our apologies for having been the occasion of the mischief
that has happened."

The old man did not interrupt the speaker, but, when he had stared at him
from head to foot, he said: "You are strong and you speak fairly, and I
might like you well enough if you were in other company.  I don't want
your carpenter; only send me down a hammer, a wedge, and a few strong
nails.  Now, you can do nothing more for me, so pack off"

"We are going at once," said the more handsomely dressed visitor in a
thin and effeminate voice.  "What can a man do when the boys pelt him
with dirt from a safe hiding-place, but take himself off"

"Be off, be off," said the person thus described, with a laugh.
"As far off as Samothrace if you like, fat Eulaeus; you can scarcely have
forgotten the way there since you advised the king to escape thither with
all his treasure.  But if you cannot trust yourself to find it alone,
I recommend you your interpreter and guide there to show you the road."

The Eunuch Eulaeus, the favorite councillor of King Ptolemy--called
Philometor (the lover of his mother)--turned pale at these words, cast a
sinister glance at the old man and beckoned to the young Roman; he
however was not inclined to follow, for the scolding old oddity had taken
his fancy--perhaps because he was conscious that the old man, who
generally showed no reserve in his dislikes, had a liking for him.
Besides, he found nothing to object to in his opinion of his companions,
so he turned to Eulaeus and said courteously:

"Accept my best thanks for your company so far, and do not let me detain
you any longer from your more important occupations on my account."

Eulaeus bowed and replied, "I know what my duty is.  The king entrusted
me with your safe conduct; permit me therefore to wait for you under the
acacias yonder."

When Eulaeus and the guide had reached the green grove, Irene hoped to
find an opportunity to prefer her petition, but the Roman had stopped in
front of the old man's cell, and had begun a conversation with him which
she could not venture to interrupt.  She set down the platter with the
bread and dates that had been entrusted to her on a projecting stone by
her side with a little sigh, crossed her arms and feet as she leaned
against the wall, and pricked up her ears to hear their talk.

"I am not a Greek," said the youth, "and you are quite mistaken in
thinking that I came to Egypt and to see you out of mere curiosity."

"But those who come only to pray in the temple," interrupted the other,
"do not--as it seems to me--choose an Eulaeus for a companion, or any
such couple as those now waiting for you under the acacias, and invoking
anything rather than blessings on your head; at any rate, for my own
part, even if I were a thief I would not go stealing in their company.
What then brought you to Serapis?"

"It is my turn now to accuse you of curiosity!"

"By all means," cried the old man, "I am an honest dealer and quite
willing to take back the coin I am ready to pay away.  Have you come to
have a dream interpreted, or to sleep in the temple yonder and have a
face revealed to you?"

"Do I look so sleepy," said the Roman, "as to want to go to bed again
now, only an hour after sunrise?"

"It may be," said the recluse, "that you have not yet fairly come to the
end of yesterday, and that at the fag-end of some revelry it occurred to
you that you might visit us and sleep away your headache at Serapis."

"A good deal of what goes on outside these walls seems to come to your
ears," retorted the Roman, "and if I were to meet you in the street
I should take you for a ship's captain or a master-builder who had to
manage a number of unruly workmen.  According to what I heard of you and
those like you in Athens and elsewhere, I expected to find you something
quite different."

"What did you expect?"  said Serapion laughing.  "I ask you
notwithstanding the risk of being again considered curious."

"And I am very willing to answer," retorted the other, "but if I were to
tell you the whole truth I should run into imminent danger of being sent
off as ignominiously as my unfortunate guide there."

"Speak on," said the old man, "I keep different garments for different
men, and the worst are not for those who treat me to that rare dish--a
little truth.  But before you serve me up so bitter a meal tell me, what
is your name?"

"Shall I call the guide?"  said the Roman with an ironical laugh.  "He
can describe me completely, and give you the whole history of my family.
But, joking apart, my name is Publius."

"The name of at least one out of every three of your countrymen."

"I am of the Cornelia gens and of the family of the Scipios," continued
the youth in a low voice, as though he would rather avoid boasting of his
illustrious name.

"Indeed, a noble gentleman, a very grand gentleman!"  said the recluse,
bowing deeply out of his window.  "But I knew that beforehand, for at
your age and with such slender ankles to his long legs only a nobleman
could walk as you walk.  Then Publius Cornelius--"

"Nay, call me Scipio, or rather by my first name only, Publius," the
youth begged him.  "You are called Serapion, and I will tell you what you
wish to know.  When I was told that in this temple there were people who
had themselves locked into their little chambers never to quit them,
taking thought about their dreams and leading a meditative life, I
thought they must be simpletons or fools or both at once."

"Just so, just so," interrupted Serapion.  "But there is a fourth
alternative you did not think of.  Suppose now among these men there
should be some shut up against their will, and what if I were one of
those prisoners?  I have asked you a great many questions and you have
not hesitated to answer, and you may know how I got into this miserable
cage and why I stay in it.  I am the son of a good family, for my father
was overseer of the granaries of this temple and was of Macedonian
origin, but my mother was an Egyptian.  I was born in an evil hour, on
the twenty-seventh day of the month of Paophi, a day which it is said in
the sacred books that it is an evil day and that the child that is born
in it must be kept shut up or else it will die of a snake-bite.  In
consequence of this luckless prediction many of those born on the same
day as myself were, like me, shut up at an early age in this cage.  My
father would very willingly have left me at liberty, but my uncle,
a caster of horoscopes in the temple of Ptah, who was all in all in my
mother's estimation, and his friends with him, found many other evil
signs about my body, read misfortune for me in the stars, declared that
the Hathors had destined me to nothing but evil, and set upon her so
persistently that at last I was destined to the cloister--we lived here
at Memphis.  I owe this misery to my dear mother and it was out of pure
affection that she brought it upon me.  You look enquiringly at me--aye,
boy! life will teach you too the lesson that the worst hate that can be
turned against you often entails less harm upon you than blind tenderness
which knows no reason.  I learned to read and write, and all that is
usually taught to the priests' sons, but never to accommodate myself to
my lot, and I never shall.--Well, when my beard grew I succeeded in
escaping and I lived for a time in the world.  I have been even to Rome,
to Carthage, and in Syria; but at last I longed to drink Nile-water once
more and I returned to Egypt.  Why?  Because, fool that I was, I fancied
that bread and water with captivity tasted better in my own country than
cakes and wine with freedom in the land of the stranger.

"In my father's house I found only my mother still living, for my father
had died of grief.  Before my flight she had been a tall, fine woman,
when I came home I found her faded and dying.  Anxiety for me, a
miserable wretch, had consumed her, said the physician--that was the
hardest thing to bear.  When at last the poor, good little woman, who
could so fondly persuade me--a wild scamp--implored me on her death-bed
to return to my retreat, I yielded, and swore to her that I would stay in
my prison patiently to the end, for I am as water is in northern
countries, a child may turn me with its little hand or else I am as hard
and as cold as crystal.  My old mother died soon after I had taken this
oath.  I kept my word as you see--and you have seen too how I endure my
fate."

"Patiently enough," replied Publius, "I should writhe in my chains far
more rebelliously than you, and I fancy it must do you good to rage and
storm sometimes as you did just now."

"As much good as sweet wine from Chios!"  exclaimed the anchorite,
smacking his lips as if he tasted the noble juice of the grape, and
stretching his matted head as far as possible out of the window.  Thus it
happened that he saw Irene, and called out to her in a cheery voice:

"What are you doing there, child?  You are standing as if you were
waiting to say good-morning to good fortune."

The girl hastily took up the trencher, smoothed down her hair with her
other hand, and as she approached the men, coloring slightly, Publius
feasted his eyes on her in surprise and admiration.

But Serapion's words had been heard by another person, who now emerged
from the acacia-grove and joined the young Roman, exclaiming before he
came up with them:

"Waiting for good fortune! does the old man say?  And you can hear it
said, Publius, and not reply that she herself must bring good fortune
wherever she appears."

The speaker was a young Greek, dressed with extreme care, and he now
stuck the pomegranate-blossom he carried in his hand behind his ear, so
as to shake hands with his friend Publius; then he turned his fair,
saucy, almost girlish face with its finely-cut features up to the
recluse, wishing to attract his attention to himself by his next speech.

"With Plato's greeting 'to deal fairly and honestly' do I approach you!"
he cried; and then he went on more quietly: "But indeed you can hardly
need such a warning, for you belong to those who know how to conquer
true--that is the inner--freedom; for who can be freer than he who needs
nothing?  And as none can be nobler than the freest of the free, accept
the tribute of my respect, and scorn not the greeting of Lysias of
Corinth, who, like Alexander, would fain exchange lots with you, the
Diogenes of Egypt, if it were vouchsafed to him always to see out the
window of your mansion--otherwise not very desirable--the charming form
of this damsel--"

"That is enough, young man," said Serapion, interrupting the Greek's flow
of words.  "This young girl belongs to the temple, and any one who is
tempted to speak to her as if she were a flute-player will have to deal
with me, her protector.  Yes, with me; and your friend here will bear me
witness that it may not be altogether to your advantage to have a quarrel
with such as I.  Now, step back, young gentlemen, and let the girl tell
me what she needs."

When Irene stood face to face with the anchorite, and had told him
quickly and in a low voice what she had done, and that her sister Klea
was even now waiting for her return, Serapion laughed aloud, and then
said in a low tone, but gaily, as a father teases his daughter:

"She has eaten enough for two, and here she stands, on her tiptoes,
reaching up to my window, as if it were not an over-fed girl that stood
in her garments, but some airy sprite.  We may laugh, but Klea, poor
thing, she must be hungry?"

Irene made no reply, but she stood taller on tiptoe than ever, put her
face up to Serapion, nodding her pretty head at him again and again, and
as she looked roguishly and yet imploringly into his eyes Serapion went
on:

"And so I am to give my breakfast to Klea, that is what you want; but
unfortunately that breakfast is a thing of the past and beyond recall;
nothing is left of it but the date-stones.  But there, on the trencher
in your hand, is a nice little meal."

"That is the offering to Serapis sent by old Phibis," answered the girl.

"Hm, hm--oh! of course!"  muttered the old man.  "So long as it is for a
god--surely he might do without it better than a poor famishing girl."

Then he went on, gravely and emphatically, as a teacher who has made an
incautious speech before his pupils endeavors to rectify it by another of
more solemn import.

"Certainly, things given into our charge should never be touched;
besides, the gods first and man afterwards.  Now if only I knew what to
do.  But, by the soul of my father!  Serapis himself sends us what we
need.  Step close up to me, noble Scipio--or Publius, if I may so call
you--and look out towards the acacias.  Do you see my favorite, your
cicerone, and the bread and roast fowls that your slave has brought him
in that leathern wallet?  And now he is setting a wine-jar on the carpet
he has spread at the big feet of Eulaeus--they will be calling you to
share the meal in a minute, but I know of a pretty child who is very
hungry--for a little white cat stole away her breakfast this morning.
Bring me half a loaf and the wing of a fowl, and a few pomegranates if
you like, or one of the peaches Eulaeus is so judiciously fingering.
Nay--you may bring two of them, I have a use for both."

"Serapion!"  exclaimed Irene in mild reproof and looking down at the
ground; but the Greek answered with prompt zeal, "More, much more than
that I can bring you.  I hasten--"

"Stay here," interrupted Publius with decision, holding him back by the
shoulder.  "Serapion's request was addressed to me, and I prefer to do my
friend's pleasure in my own person."

"Go then," cried the Greek after Publius as he hurried away.  "You will
not allow me even thanks from the sweetest lips in Memphis.  Only look,
Serapion, what a hurry he is in.  And now poor Eulaeus has to get up; a
hippopotamus might learn from him how to do so with due awkwardness.
Well! I call that making short work of it--a Roman never asks before he
takes; he has got all he wants and Eulaeus looks after him like a cow
whose calf has been stolen from her; to be sure I myself would rather eat
peaches than see them carried away!  Oh if only the people in the Forum
could see him now!  Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, own grandson to the
great Africanus, serving like a slave at a feast with a dish in each
hand!  Well Publius, what has Rome the all conquering brought home this
time in token of victory?"

"Sweet peaches and a roast pheasant," said Cornelius laughing, and he
handed two dishes into the anchorite's window; "there is enough left
still for the old man."

"Thanks, many thanks!"  cried Serapion, beckoning to Irene, and he gave
her a golden-yellow cake of wheaten bread, half of the roast bird,
already divided by Eulaeus, and two peaches, and whispered to her:
"Klea may come for the rest herself when these men are gone.  Now thank
this kind gentleman and go."

For an instant the girl stood transfixed, her face crimson with confusion
and her glistening white teeth set in her nether lip, speechless, face to
face with the young Roman and avoiding the earnest gaze of his black
eyes.  Then she collected herself and said:

"You are very kind.  I cannot make any pretty speeches, but I thank you
most kindly."

"And your very kind thanks," replied Publius, "add to the delights of
this delightful morning.  I should very much like to possess one of the
violets out of your hair in remembrance of this day--and of you."

"Take them all," exclaimed Irene, hastily taking the bunch from her hair
and holding them out to the Roman; but before he could take them she drew
back her hand and said with an air of importance:

"The queen has had them in her hand.  My sister Klea got them yesterday
in the procession."

Scipio's face grew grave at these words, and he asked with commanding
brevity and sharpness:

"Has your sister black hair and is she taller than you are, and did she
wear a golden fillet in the procession?  Did she give you these flowers?
Yes--do you say?  Well then, she had the bunch from me, but although she
accepted them she seems to have taken very little pleasure in them, for
what we value we do not give away--so there they may go, far enough!"

With these words he flung the flowers over the house and then he went on:

"But you, child, you shall be held guiltless of their loss.  Give me your
pomegranate-flower, Lysias!"

"Certainly not," replied the Greek.  "You chose to do pleasure to your
friend Serapion in your own person when you kept me from going to fetch
the peaches, and now I desire to offer this flower to the fair Irene with
my own hand."

"Take this flower," said Publius, turning his back abruptly on the girl,
while Lysias laid the blossom on the trencher in the maiden's hand; she
felt the rough manners of the young Roman as if she had been touched by a
hard hand; she bowed silently and timidly and then quickly ran home.

Publius looked thoughtfully after her till Lysias called out to him:

"What has come over me?  Has saucy Eros perchance wandered by mistake
into the temple of gloomy Serapis this morning?"

"That would not be wise," interrupted the recluse, "for Cerberus, who
lies at the foot of our God, would soon pluck the fluttering wings of the
airy youngster," and as he spoke he looked significantly at the Greek.

"Aye! if he let himself be caught by the three-headed monster," laughed
Lysias.  "But come away now, Publius; Eulaeus has waited long enough."

"You go to him then," answered the Roman, "I will follow soon; but first
I have a word to say to Serapion."

Since Irene's disappearance, the old man had turned his attention to the
acacia-grove where Eulaeus was still feasting.  When the Roman addressed
him he said, shaking his great head with dissatisfaction:

"Your eyes of course are no worse than mine.  Only look at that man
munching and moving his jaws and smacking his lips.  By Serapis!  you can
tell the nature of a man by watching him eat.  You know I sit in my cage
unwillingly enough, but I am thankful for one thing about it, and that is
that it keeps me far from all that such a creature as Eulaeus calls
enjoyment--for such enjoyment, I tell you, degrades a man."

"Then you are more of a philosopher than you wish to seem," replied
Publius.

"I wish to seem nothing," answered the anchorite.

"For it is all the same to me what others think of me.  But if a man who
has nothing to do and whose quiet is rarely disturbed, and who thinks his
own thoughts about many things is a philosopher, you may call me one if
you like.  If at any time you should need advice you may come here again,
for I like you, and you might be able to do me an important service."

"Only speak," interrupted the Roman, "I should be glad from my heart to
be of any use to you."

"Not now," said Serapion softly.  "But come again when you have time--
without your companions there, of course--at any rate without Eulaeus,
who of all the scoundrels I ever came across is the very worst.  It may
be as well to tell you at once that what I might require of you would
concern not myself but the weal or woe of the water-bearers, the two
maidens you have seen and who much need protection."

"I came here for my parents' sake and for Klea's, and not on your
account," said Publius frankly.  "There is something in her mien and in
her eyes which perhaps may repel others but which attracts me.  How came
so admirable a creature in your temple?"

"When you come again," replied the recluse, "I will tell you the history
of the sisters and what they owe to Eulaeus.  Now go, and understand me
when I say the girls are well guarded.  This observation is for the
benefit of the Greek who is but a heedless fellow; but you, when you
know who the girls are, will help me to protect them."

"That I would do as it is, with real pleasure," replied Publius; he took
leave of the recluse and called out to Eulaeus.