ir guardian, Pothinus.

"Our family life was of course wholly transformed by the reception of the
royal children. In the first place, we moved from our house in the Museum
Square into the little palace at Kanopus, and the big, shady garden
delighted us. I remember, as though it were but yesterday, the morning--I
was then a boy of fifteen--when my father told us that two of the King's
daughters would soon become members of the household. There were three of
us children--Charmian, who went to the war with the Queen, because Iras,
our niece, was ill; I myself; and Straton, who died long ago. We were
urged to treat the princesses with the utmost courtesy and consideration,
and we perceived that their reception really demanded respect; for the
palace, which we had found empty and desolate, was refurnished from roof
to foundation.

"The day before they were expected horses, chariots, and litters came,
while boats and a splendid state galley, fully manned, arrived by sea.
Then a train of male and female slaves appeared, among them two fat
eunuchs.

"I can still see the angry look with which my father surveyed all these
people. He drove at once to the city, and on his return his clear eyes
were as untroubled as ever. A court official accompanied him, and only
that portion of the useless amount of luggage and number of persons that
my father desired remained.

"The princesses were to come the next morning--it was at the end of
February--flowers were blooming in the grass and on the bushes, while the
foliage of the trees glittered with the fresh green which the rising sap
gives to the young leaves. I was sitting on a strong bough of a
sycamore-tree, which grew opposite to the house, watching for them. Their
arrival was delayed and, as I gazed meanwhile over the garden, I thought
it must surely please them, for not a palace in the city had one so
beautiful.

"At last the litters appeared; they had neither runners nor attendants,
as my father had requested, and when the princesses alighted--both at the
same moment--I knew not which way to turn my eyes first, for the creature
that fluttered like a dragon-fly rather than stepped from the first
litter, was not a girl like other mortals--she seemed like a wish, a
hope. When the dainty, beautiful creature turned her head hither and
thither, and at last gazed questioningly, as if beseeching help, into the
faces of my father and mother, who stood at the gate to receive her, it
seeme