riends decide on staking everything in order to deprive the members
of the extensive community of Jews in the city of their rights as
citizens, and to expel them, if possible, from Alexandria. So warm was
his zeal that he totally forgot the presence of the architect, and
his humble origin, and declared to be indispensable, that even the
descendants of freed-slaves should be disenfranchised.

Pontius saw in the steward's inflamed eyes and cheeks that it was the
wine which spoke within him, and he made no answer; and determined that
the rest he needed should not be thus abridged, he rose from table and
briefly excusing himself he retired to the room in which the couch had
been prepared for him. After he had undressed he desired his slave
to see what Keraunus was about, and soon received the reassuring
information that the steward was fast asleep and snoring.

"Only listen," said the slave, to confirm his report. "You can hear him
grunting and snuffing as far as this. I pushed a cushion under his head,
for otherwise, so full as he is, the stout gentleman might come to some
harm."

Love is a plant which springs up for many who have never sown it, and
grows into a spreading tree for many who have neither fostered nor
tended it. How little had Keraunus ever done to win the heart of his
daughter, how much on the contrary which could not fail to overshadow
and trouble her young life. And yet Selene, whose youth--for she was
but nineteen--needed repose and to whom the evening with the reprieve of
sleep brought more pleasure than the morning with its load of cares and
labor, sat by the three-branched lamp and watched, and tormented herself
more and more as it grew later and later, at her father's long absence.
About a week before the strong man had suddenly lost consciousness;
only, it is true, for a few minutes, and the physician had told her that
though he appeared to be in superabundant health, the attack indicated
that he must follow his prescriptions strictly and avoid all kinds
of excess. A single indiscretion, he had declared, might swiftly and
suddenly cut the thread of his existence. After her father had gone out
in obedience to the architect's invitation, Selene had brought out her
youngest brothers' and sisters' garments, in order to mend them. Her
sister Arsinoe, who was her junior by two years, and whose fingers were
as nimble as her own, might indeed have helped her, but she had gone
to bed early and was sleeping