er in a
bath, but it catches us like fire. Sappho of Lesbos flung herself from
the Leucadian rock because Phaon flouted her, and if I could save Marcus
from any calamity by doing the same, I would follow her example.--You
have a lover, too; but your feeling for him, with all the 'intellect' and
'reflections,' and 'thought' of which you spoke, cannot be the right one.
There is no but or if in my, love at any rate; and yet, for all that, my
heart aches so sorely and beats so wildly, I will wait patiently with
Eusebius and submit to whatever I am bidden.--And in spite of it all you
condemn me unheard, for you. . . . But why do you stand and look like
that? You look just like you did that time when I heard you sing. By all
the Muses! but you, too, like us, have some fire in your veins, you are
not one of the lukewarm sort; you are an artist, and a better one than I;
and if you ever should feel the right love, then--then take care lest you
break loose from propriety and custom--or whatever name you give to the
sacred powers that subdue passion--even more wildly than I--who am an
honest girl, and mean to remain so, for all the fire and flame in my
breast!"

Gorgo remembered the hour in which she had, in fact, proffered to the man
of her choice as a free gift, the love which, by every canon of
propriety, she ought only to have granted to his urgent wooing. She
blushed and her eyes fell before the humble little singer; but while she
was considering what answer she could make men's steps were heard
approaching, and presently Eusebius and Marcus entered the room, followed
by Gorgo's lover. Constantine was in deep dejection, for one of his
brothers had lost his life in the burning of his father's ship-yard, and
as compared with this grief, the destruction of the timber stores which
constituted the chief part of his wealth scarcely counted as a calamity.

Gorgo had met him with a doubtful and embarrassed air; but when she
learnt of the blow that had fallen on him and his parents, she clung to
him caressingly and tried to comfort him. The others sympathized deeply
with his sorrow; but soon it was Dada's turn to weep, for Eusebius
brought the news of her foster-parent's death in the fight at the
Serapeum, and of Orpheus being severely wounded.

The cheerful music-room was a scene of woe till Demetrius came to conduct
his brother and Dada to the widow Mary who was expecting them. He had
arrived in a chariot, for he declared his legs