cheeks, which had been flushed with fresh
hopes, and her counselor had just expressed his wish to talk the matter
over with the lady Berenike, when she came into the room. She was now
dressed in mourning, and her pale, beautiful face showed the traces of
the tears she had just shed. The dark shadows which, when they surround a
woman's eyes, betray past storms of grief, as the halo round the
moon--the eye of night--gives warning of storms to come, were deeper than
ever; and when her sorrowful gaze fell on Melissa, the girl felt an
almost irresistible longing to throw herself into her arms and weep on
her motherly bosom.

Philostratus, too, was deeply touched by the appearance of this mother,
who possessed so much, but for whom everything dearest to a woman's heart
had been destroyed by a cruel stroke of Fate. He was glad to be able to
tell her that he hoped to soften Caesar. Still, his plan was a bold one;
Caracalla had been deeply offended by the scornful tone of the attacks on
him, and Melissa's brother was perhaps the only one of the scoffers who
had been taken. The crime of the Alexandrian wits could not be left
unpunished. For such a desperate case only desperate remedies could
avail; he therefore ventured to propose to conduct Melissa into Caesar's
presence, that she might appeal to his clemency.

The matron started as though a scorpion had stung her. In great
agitation, she threw her arm round the girl as if to shelter her from
imminent danger, and Melissa, seeking help, laid her head on that kind
breast. Berenike was reminded, by the scent that rose up from the girl's
hair, of the hours when her own child had thus fondly clung to her. Her
motherly heart had found a new object to love, and exclaiming,
"Impossible!" she clasped Melissa more closely.

But Philostratus begged to be heard. Any plea urged by a third person he
declared would only be the ruin of the rash mediator.

"Caracalla," he went on, looking at Melissa, "is terrible in his
passions, no one can deny that; but of late severe suffering has made him
irritably sensitive, and he insists on the strictest virtue in all who
are about his person. He pays no heed to female beauty, and this sweet
child, at any rate, will find many protectors. He shall know that the
high-priest's wife, one of the best of women, keeps an anxious eye on
Melissa's fate; and I myself, his mother's friend, shall be at hand. His
passion for revenge, on the other hand, is boundles