k which seems to you the most
desirable?"

"Spare me the choice, I beseech you," replied Barine in an embarrassed
tone. "I need nothing from your treasures, and, as for the other
possessions I lack many things; but it is uncertain how the noblest and
highest gifts in the possession of the marvellously endowed favourite of
the gods would suit the small, commonplace ones I call mine, and I know
not--"

"A sensible doubt!" interrupted the Queen. "The lame man, who desired
a horse, obtained one, and on his first ride broke his neck. The only
blessing--the highest of all--which surely bestows happiness can neither
be given away nor transferred from one to another. He who has gained it
may be robbed of it the next moment."

The last sentence had fallen from the Queen's lips slowly and
thoughtfully, but Barine, remembering Archibius's tale, said modestly,
"You are thinking of the chief good mentioned by Epicurus--perfect peace
of mind."

Cleopatra's eyes sparkled with a brighter light as she asked eagerly,
"Do you, the granddaughter of a philosopher, know the system of the
master?"

"Very superficially, your Majesty. My intellect is far inferior to
yours. It is difficult for me thoroughly to comprehend all the details
of any system of philosophy."

"Yet you have attempted it?"

"Others endeavoured to introduce me into the doctrines of the Stoics.
I have forgotten most of what I learned; only one thing lingered in my
memory, and I know why--because it pleased me."

"And that?"

"Was the wise law of living according to the dictates of our own
natures. The command to shun everything contradictory to the simple
fundamental traits of our own characters pleased me, and wherever I saw
affectation, artificiality, and mannerism I was repelled, while from
my grandfather's teaching I drew the principle that I could do nothing
better than to remain, so far as life would permit, what I had been as
a child ere I had heard the first word of philosophy, or felt the
constraint which society and its forms impose."

"So the system of the Stoics leads to this end also!" cried the Queen
gaily, and, turning to the companion of her own studies, she added: "Did
you hear, Charmian? If we had only succeeded in perceiving the wisdom
and calm, purposeful order of existence which the Stoics, amid so
much that is perverse, unhealthy, and provocative of contradiction,
nevertheless set above everything else! How can I, in order to live
wisely,