ong, and do all I can. Here, behind this
forehead, good ideas are seething; what I have succeeded in carrying out
by myself, has at any rate brought credit and fame to others, although it
is all far from resembling the ideal of beauty that here--here--I seem to
see far away and behind a cloud; still I feel that if, in a moment of
kindness, Fortune will but shed a few fresh drops of dew on it all I
shall, at any rate, turn out something better than the mere ill-paid
right-hand of Papias, who, without me does not know what he ought to do,
or how to do it."

"Only keep your eyes open and work hard," cried Doris.

"It is of no use without luck," muttered the singer, shrugging his
shoulders.

The young artist bid his parents good-night, and was about to leave, but
his mother detained him to show him the young goldfinches, hatched only
the day before. Pollux obeyed her wish, not merely to please her, but
because he liked to watch the gay little bird that sat warming and
sheltering her nestlings. Close to the cage stood the huge wine-jar and
his mother's cup, decorated by his own hand. His eye fell on these, and
he pushed them aside in silence. Then, taking courage, he said, laughing:
"The Emperor will often pass by here, mother; give up celebrating your
Dionysiac festival. How would it do if you filled the jar with one-fourth
wine and three-fourths water? It does not taste badly."

"Spoiling good gifts," replied his mother.

"One-fourth wine-to please me," Pollux entreated, taking his mother by
the shoulders and kissing her forehead.

"To please you, you great boy!" said Doris, as her eyes filled with
tears. "Why for you, if I must, I would drink nothing but wretched water.
Euphorion you may finish what is left in the jar presently."

.........................

Pontius had already begun his labors, at first with aid only of his
assistants who had followed him on foot. Measuring, estimating, sending
short notes and writing figures, names and suggestions on the plan, and
on his folding wax-tablets, he was not idle for an instant, though
frequently interrupted by the appointed superintendents of the workshops
and manufactures in Lochias, whose co-operation he required. They only
came at this late hour because they were called upon by the prefect's
orders.

Papias, the sculptor, introduced himself among the latest, though Pontius
had written to him with his own hand that he had to communicate to him a
very re