hen to be taken home.

Alexander, too, was seeking Philip; but, sharp as the artist's eyes were,
Melissa's seemed to be keener, for, just as they were giving it up and
turning to go, she pointed to a dark corner and said softly, "There he
is."

And there, in fact, her brother was, sitting with two men, one very tall
and the other a little man, his brow resting on his hand in the deep
shadow of a sarcophagus, between the wall and a mummy-case set on end,
which till now had hidden him from Alexander and Melissa.

Who could the man be who had kept the young philosopher, somewhat
inaccessible in his pride of learning, so long in talk in that half-dark
corner? He was not one of the learned society at the Museum; Alexander
knew them all. Besides, he was not dressed like them, in the Greek
fashion, but in the flowing robe of a Magian. And the stranger was a man
of consequence, for he wore his splendid garment with a superior air, and
as Alexander approached him he remembered having somewhere seen this
tall, bearded figure, with the powerful head garnished with flowing and
carefully oiled black curls. Such handsome and well-chiseled features,
such fine eyes, and such a lordly, waving beard were not easily
forgotten; his memory suddenly awoke and threw a light on the man as he
sat in the gloom, and on the surroundings in which he had met him for the
first time.

It was at the feast of Dionysus. Among a drunken crowd, which was rushing
wildly along the streets, and which Alexander had joined, himself one of
the wildest, this man had marched, sober and dignified as he was at this
moment, in the same flowing raiment. This had provoked the feasters, who,
being full of wine and of the god, would have nothing that could remind
them of the serious side of life. Such sullen reserve on a day of
rejoicing was an insult to the jolly giver of the fruits of the earth,
and to wine itself, the care-killer; and the mad troop of artists,
disguised as Silenus, satyrs, and fauns, had crowded round the stranger
to compel him to join their rout and empty the wine-jar which a burly
Silenus was carrying before him on his ass.

At first the man had paid no heed to the youths' light mockery; but as
they grew bolder, he suddenly stood still, seized the tall faun, who was
trying to force the wine-jar on him, by both arms, and, holding him
firmly, fixed his grave, dark eyes on those of the youth. Alexander had
not forgotten the half-comical, half-thre