nes:

"My son, did you say? My son Orion?--As if you did not know! Why, he was
my lover; yes, he himself said he was, and that was why they came and
bound me and cut my ears.--But you know it. But I do not love him--I
could, I might wish, I. . . ." She clenched her fists, and gnashed her
white teeth, and went on with panting breath:

"Where is he?--You will not tell me? Wait a bit--only wait. Oh, I am
sharp enough, I know you have him here.--Where is be? Orion, Orion, where
are you?"

She sprang away, ran through the sheds and lifted the lids of all the
color-vats, stooping low to look down into each as if she expected to
find him there, while the others roared with laughter.

Most of her companions giggled at this witless behavior; but some, who
felt it somewhat uncanny and whom the unhappy girl's bitter cry had
struck painfully, drew apart and had already organized some new
amusement, when a neat little woman appeared on the scene, clapping her
plump hands and exclaiming:

"Enough of laughter--now, to bed, you swarm of bees. The night is over
too soon in the morning, and the looms must be rattling again by sunrise.
One this way and one that, just like mice when the cat appears. Will you
make haste, you night-birds? Come, will you make haste?"

The girls had learnt to obey, and they hurried past the matron to their
sleeping-quarters. Perpetua, a woman scarcely past fifty, whose face wore
a pleasant expression of mingled shrewdness and kindness, stood pricking
up her ears and listening; she heard from the water-shed a peculiar low,
long-drawn Wheeuh!--a signal with which she was familiar as that by which
the prefect Thomas had been wont to call together his scattered household
from the garden of his villa on Mount Lebanon. It was now Paula who gave
the whistle to attract her nurse's attention.

Perpetua shook her head anxiously. What could have brought her beloved
child to see her at so late an hour? Something serious must have
occurred, and with characteristic presence of mind she called out, to
show that she had heard Paula's signal: "Now, make haste. Will you be
quick? Wheeuh! girls--wheeuh! Hurry, hurry!"

She followed the last of the slave-girls into the sleeping-room, and when
she had assured herself that they were all there but the crazy Persian
she enquired where she was. They had all seen her a few minutes ago in
the shed; so she bid them good-night and left them, letting it be
understood that she was