want Selene to come," whimpered the child. "Pray, pray, do not leave
me alone again."

"Your old father will stay with you my pet," said Keraunus tenderly, for
it cut him to the soul to see this child suffer. "You none of you know
what this boy is to us all."

"He will soon go to sleep," Arsinoe asserted. "Do let us go, or it will
be too late."

"And leave the old woman to commit some other stupid blunder?" cried
Keraunus. "It is my duty to stay with the poor little boy. You can go to
your sister and take the old woman with you."

"Very good, and to-morrow early I will come back."

"To-morrow morning?" said Keraunus surprised. "No, no, that will not do.
Doris said just now that Selene will be well nursed by the Christians.
Only see how she is, give her my love, and then come back."

"But father--"

"Besides you must remember that the prefect's wife expects you to-morrow
at noon to choose the stuff for your dress, and you must not look as if
you had been sitting up all night."

"I will rest a little while in the morning."

"In the morning? And how about curling my hair? And your new frock? And
poor little Helios?--No child, you are only just to see Selene and then
come back again. Early in the morning too the holiday will have begun,
and you know what goes on then; the old woman would be of no use to you
in the throng. Go and see how Selene is, you are not to stay."

"I will see--"

"Not a word about seeing--you come home again. I desire it; in two hours
you are to be in bed."

Arsinoe shrugged her shoulders, and two minutes after she was standing
with the old slave-woman in front of the gate-house.

A broad beam of light still fell through the half-open door of the bowery
little room, so Euphorion and Doris had not retired to rest and could at
once open the palace-gate for her. The Graces set up a bark as Arsinoe
crossed the threshold of her old friends' house, but they did not leave
their cushion for they soon recognized her.

It was several years since Arsinoe, in obedience to her father's strict
prohibition had set foot in the snug the house, and her heart was deeply
touched as she saw again all the surroundings she had loved as a child,
and had not forgotten as she grew into girlhood. There were the birds,
the little dogs, and the lutes on the wall near the Apollo. On worthy
dame Doris' table there had always been something to eat, and there, now,
good a lovely, golden-brown cake, by the side of th