st place, as to his son's state.

It was decided that Melissa should for the present remain with her
father; but, as soon as Diodoros should be allowed to leave the Serapeum,
she was to go across the lake to receive the convalescent on his return
home.

The old woman assured her, as they walked on, that Diodoros had always
been born to good luck; and it was clear that this had never been truer
than now, when Galenus had come in the nick of time to restore him to
life and health, and when he had won such a bride as Melissa. Then she
sang the praises of Agatha, of her beauty and goodness, and told her that
the Christian damsel had made many inquiries concerning Alexander. She,
the speaker, had not been chary of her praise of the youth, and, unless
she was much mistaken, the arrow of Eros had this time pierced Agatha's
heart, though till now she had been as a child--an innocent child--as she
herself could say, who had seen her grow up from the cradle. Her faith
need not trouble either Melissa or Alexander, for gentler and more modest
wives than the Christian women were not to be found among the Greeks--and
she had known many.

Melissa rarely interrupted the garrulous old woman; but, while she
listened, pleasant pictures of the future rose before her fancy. She saw
herself and Diodoros ruling over Polybius's household, and, close at
hand, on Zeno's estate, Alexander with his beautiful and adored wife.
There, under Zeno's watchful eye, the wild youth would become a noble
man. Her father would often come to visit them, and in their happiness
would learn to find pleasure in life again. Only now and then the thought
of the sacrifice which the vehement Philip must make for his younger
brother, and of the danger which still threatened Alexander, disturbed
the cheerful contentment of her soul, rich as it was in glad hopes.

The nearer they got to her own home, the more lightly her heart beat. She
had none but good news to report there. The old woman, panting for
breath, was obliged to beg her to consider her sixty years and moderate
her pace.

Melissa willingly checked her steps; and when, at the end of the street
of Hermes, they reached the temple of the god from whom it was named and
turned off to the right, the good woman parted from her, for in this
quiet neighborhood she could safely be trusted to take care of herself.

Melissa was now alone. On her left lay the gardens of Hermes, where, on
the southern side, stood her