usual place in front of the long
table on which she worked, and where hundreds of prepared papyrus strips
were to be joined together, she felt scarcely able to raise the veil from
her face. She drew the uppermost sheets towards her, dipped the brush in
the gum-jar, and began to touch the margin of the leaf with it--but in
the very act, her strength forsook her, the brush fell from her fingers,
she dropped her hands on the table and her face in her hands, and began
to cry softly.

While she sat thus, her tears slowly flowing, her shoulders heaving, and
her whole body shaken with shuddering sobs, a woman who sat opposite to
her, beckoned to the deformed girl, and after whispering to her a few
words grasped her hand firmly and warmly and looked straight into her
eyes with her own, which though lustreless were clear and steady; then
the little hunchback silently took Arsinoe's vacant place by Selene, and
pushed the smaller half of the papyrus leaves over to the woman, and both
set diligently to work on the gumming.

They had been thus occupied for some time when Selene at last raised her
head and was about to take up her brush again. She looked round for it
and perceived her companion, whom she had not even thanked for her
helpfulness, busily at work in Arsinoe's seat. She looked at her neighbor
with eyes still full of tears, and as the girl, who was wholly absorbed
in her task, did not notice her gaze, Selene said in a tone of surprise
rather than kindliness.

"This is my sister's place; you may sit here to-day, but when the factory
opens again she must sit by me again."

"I know, I know," said the workwoman shyly. "I am only finishing your
sheets because I have no more of my own to do, and I can see how badly
your foot is hurting you."

The whole transaction was so strange and novel to Selene that she did not
even understand her neighbor's meaning, and she only said, with a shrug:

"You may earn all you can, for aught I can do; I cannot do anything
to-day."

Her deformed companion colored and looked up doubtfully at her opposite
neighbor, who at once laid aside her brush and said, turning to Selene:

"That is not what Mary means, my child. She is doing one-half of your
day's task and I am doing the other, so that your suffering foot may not
deprive you of your day's pay."

"Do I look so very poor then?" exclaimed Keraunus' daughter, and a faint
crimson tinged her pale cheeks.

"By no means, my child," replied