ring her with loud ohs! and ahs! as if she were some
wondrous incarnation, not to be too nearly approached, and on no account
to be touched. The elaborate dressing of her hair would not allow of her
stooping over them as usual. She could only stroke little Helios' curls,
saying: "Tomorrow you shall have a ride in the air, and perhaps Selene
will tell you a pretty story by-and-bye."

Her heart beat faster than usual as she stepped into the litter, which
was waiting for her just in front of the gate-house. Old Doris looked at
her from a distance with pleasure, and while Keraunus stepped out into
the street to call a litter for himself, the old woman hastily cut the
two finest roses from her bush, and pressing her fingers to her lips with
a sly smile, put them into the girl's hand.

Arsinoe felt as if it were in a dream that she went to the ship-builder's
house, and from thence to the theatre, and on her way she fully
understood, for the first time, that alarm and delight may find room side
by side in a girl's mind, and that one by no means hinders the existence
of the other.

Fear and expectation so completely overmastered her, that she neither saw
nor heard what was going on around her; only once she noticed a young man
with a garland on his head, who, as he passed her, arm in arm with
another, called out to her gaily: "Long live beauty!"

From that moment she kept her eyes fixed on her lap and on the roses dame
Doris had given her. The flowers reminded her of the kind old woman's
son, and she wondered whether tall Pollux had perhaps seen her in her
finery. That, she would have liked very much; and after all, it was not
at all impossible, for, of course, since Pollux had been working at
Lochias he must often have gone to his parents. Perhaps even he had
himself picked the roses for her, but had not dared to give them to her
as her father was so near.

CHAPTER XVII.

But the young sculptor had not been at the gatehouse when Arsinoe went
by. He had thought of her often enough since meeting her again by the
bust of her mother; but on this particular afternoon his time and
thoughts were fully claimed by another fair damsel. Balbilla had arrived
at Lochias about noon, accompanied, as was fitting, by the worthy
Claudia, the not wealthy widow of a senator, who for many years had
filled the place of lady-in-attendance and protecting companion to the
rich fatherless and motherless girl. At Rome, she conducted Balbilla