n from her father's hand before the
gate of the garden of Epicurus to present to her as his first gift. That
had also been composed of red roses, surrounded by white ones. Instead
of palm fronds, it had been encircled only by fern leaves. This was
one of the beautiful offerings which Antony's gracious nature so well
understood how to choose. The bouquet was a symbol of the unprecedented
generosity natural to this large-minded man. No magic goblet had
compelled him to approach her thus and with such homage. Nothing had
constrained him, save his overflowing heart, his constant, fadeless
love.

As if restored to youth, transported by some magic spell to the happy
days of early girlhood, she forgot her royal dignity and the hundreds
of eyes which rested upon him as if spell-bound; and, obedient to an
irresistible impulse of the heart, she sank upon the broad, heaving
breast of the kneeling hero. Laughing joyously in the clear, silvery
tones which are usually heard only in youth, he clasped her in his
strong arms, raised her slender figure in its floating royal mantle
from the ground, kissed her lips and eyes, held her aloft in the soaring
attitude of the Goddess of Victory, as if to display his happiness to
the eyes of all, and at last placed her carefully on her feet again like
some treasured jewel.

Then, turning to the children, who were waiting at their mother's side,
he lifted first little Alexander, then the twins, to kiss them; and,
while holding Helios and Selene in his arms, as if the joy of seeing
them again had banished their weight, the shouts which had arisen when
the Queen sank on his breast again burst forth.

The ancient walls of the Lochias palace had never heard such
acclamations. They passed from lip to lip, from hundreds to hundreds
and, though those more distant did not know the cause, they joined in
the shouts. Along the whole vast stretch from the Lochias to the Choma
the cheers rang out like a single, heart-stirring, inseparable cry,
echoing across the harbour, the ships lying at anchor, the towering
masts, to the cliff amid the sea where Barine was nursing her new-made
husband.

CHAPTER XX.

The property of the freedman Pyrrhus was a flat rock in the northern
part of the harbour, scarcely larger than the garden of Didymus at the
Corner of the Muses, a desolate spot where neither tree nor blade of
grass grew. It was called the Serpent Island, though the inhabitants
had long since rid it