long absence.
About a week before the strong man had suddenly lost consciousness; only,
it is true, for a few minutes, and the physician had told her that though
he appeared to be in superabundant health, the attack indicated that he
must follow his prescriptions strictly and avoid all kinds of excess. A
single indiscretion, he had declared, might swiftly and suddenly cut the
thread of his existence. After her father had gone out in obedience to
the architect's invitation, Selene had brought out her youngest brothers'
and sisters' garments, in order to mend them. Her sister Arsinoe, who was
her junior by two years, and whose fingers were as nimble as her own,
might indeed have helped her, but she had gone to bed early and was
sleeping by the children who could not be left untended at night. Her
female slave, who had been in her grandmother's service, ought to have
assisted her; but the old half-blind negress saw even worse by lamp-light
than by daylight, and after a few stitches could do no more. Selene sent
her to bed and sat down alone to her work.

For the first hour she sewed away without looking up, considering,
meanwhile, how she could best contrive to support the family till the end
of the month on the few drachmae she could dispose of. As it got later
she grew wearier and wearier, but still she sat at the work, though her
pretty head often sank upon her breast. She must await her father's
return, for a potion prepared by the physician stood waiting for him, and
she feared he would forget it if she did not remind him.

By the end of the second hour sleep overcame her, and she felt as if the
chair she was sitting on was giving way under her, and as if it was
sinking at first slowly and then quicker and quicker, into a deep abyss
that opened beneath her. Looking up for help in her dream, she could see
nothing but her father's face, which looked aside with indifference. As
her dream went on she called him and called him again, but for a long
time he did not seem to hear her. At last he looked down at her and when
he perceived her he smiled, but instead of helping her he picked up
stones and clods from the edge of the gulf and threw them on her hands
with which she had clutched the brambles and roots that grew out of the
rift of the rocks. She entreated him to cease, implored him, shrieked to
him to spare her, but not a muscle moved in the face above her; it seemed
set in a vacant smile, and even his heart was dead t