ng my aerial castles tumbling about my ears?
The shy look and the blush with which she had suggested the
introduction were ominous indications, upon which I mused gloomily as
we ascended the stairs and passed through the wide doorway. I glanced
apprehensively at my companion, and met a quiet, inscrutable smile; and
at that moment she halted opposite a wall-case and faced me.

"This is my friend," she said. "Let me present you to Artemidorus,
late of the Fayyum. Oh, don't smile!" she pleaded. "I am quite
serious. Have you never heard of pious Catholics who cherish a
devotion to some long-departed saint? That is my feeling toward
Artemidorus, and if you only knew what comfort he has shed into the
heart of a lonely woman; what a quiet, unobtrusive friend he has been
to me in my solitary, friendless days, always ready with a kindly
greeting on his gentle, thoughtful face, you would like him for that
alone. And I want you to like him and to share our silent friendship.
Am I very silly, very sentimental?"

A wave of relief swept over me, and the mercury of my emotional
thermometer, which had shrunk almost into the bulb, leaped up to summer
heat. How charming it was of her and how sweetly intimate, to wish to
share this mystical friendship with me! And what a pretty conceit it
was, too, and how like this strange, inscrutable maiden, to come here
and hold silent converse with this long-departed Greek. And the pathos
of it all touched me deeply amidst the joy of this new-born intimacy.

"Are you scornful?" she asked, with a shade of disappointment, as I
made no reply.

"No, indeed I am not," I answered earnestly. "I want to make you aware
of my sympathy and my appreciation without offending you by seeming to
exaggerate, and I don't know how to express it."

"Oh, never mind about the expression, so long as you feel it. I
thought you would understand," and she gave me a smile that made me
tingle to my fingertips.

We stood awhile gazing in silence at the mummy--for such, indeed, was
her friend Artemidorus. But not an ordinary mummy. Egyptian in form,
it was entirely Greek in feeling; and brightly colored as it was, in
accordance with the racial love of color, the tasteful refinement with
which the decoration of the case was treated made those around look
garish and barbaric. But the most striking feature was a charming
panel picture which occupied the place of the usual mask. This
painting was a revelation t