other-in-law, Chrysippus, was now in Memphis with his two
little daughters. They were to go away on the morrow, so the young girl
had been obliged to devote herself to them: "And so the poor child is
sitting there at this minute," she lamented, "and must keep those two
little chatter-boxes quiet while she is longing to be here instead."

Orion quite understood these last words; he asked after the young girl,
and then added gaily:

"She promised me a collar yesterday for my little white keepsake from
Constantinople. Fie! Mary, you should not tease the poor little beast."

"No, let the dog go," added the widow, addressing the governor's little
granddaughter, who was trying to make the recalcitrant dog kiss her doll.
"But you know, Orion, this tiny creature is really too delicate for such
a big man as you are! You should give him to some pretty young lady and
then he would fulfil his destiny! And Katharina is embroidering him a
collar; I ought not to tell her little secret, but it is to have gold
stars on a blue ground."

"Because Orion is a star," cried the little girl. "So she is working
nothing but Orions."

"But fortunately there is but one star of my name," observed he. "Pray
tell her that Dame Susa."

The child clapped her hands. "He does not choose to have any other star
near him!" she exclaimed.

The widow broke in: "Little simpleton! I know people who cannot even bear
to have a likeness traced between themselves and any one else.--But this
you must permit, Orion--you were quite right just now, Neforis; his mouth
and brow might have been taken from his father's face."

The remark was quite accurate; and yet it would have been hard to imagine
two men more unlike than the bright youth full of vitality, and the
languid old man on the couch, to whom even the small exertion of moving
the men was an effort. The Mukaukas might once have been like his son,
but in some long past time. Thin grey locks now only covered one half of
his bald head, and of his eyes, which, thirty years since, had sparkled
perhaps as keenly as Orion's, there was usually nothing, or very little
to be seen; for the heavy lids always drooped over them as though they
had lost the power to open, and this gave his handsome but deathly-pale
face a somewhat owl-like look. It was not morose, however; on the
contrary the mingled lines of suffering and of benevolent kindliness
resulted in an expression only of melancholy. The mouth and flabby cheeks