e. Happily no one believes you,
and I least of all. Only lately my mother was telling me about you, and
I thought you were a girl who might turn out just such a wife as a woman
ought to be."

"And now?"

"Now, I know it for certain."

"You may be mistaken."

"No, no! your name is Selene, and you are as gentle as the kindly
moonlight; names, even, have their significance."

"And my blind brother who has never even seen the light is called
Helios!" answered the girl.

Pollux had spoken with much warmth, but Selene's last words startled him
and checked the effervescence of his feelings. Finding he did not answer
her bitter exclamation, she said, at first coolly, but with increasing
warmth:

"You are beginning to believe me, and you are right, for what I do for
the children is not done out of love, or out of kindness, or because I
set their welfare above my own. I have inherited my father's pride, and
it would be odious to me if my brothers and sisters went about in rags,
and people thought we were as poor and helpless as we really are. What
is most horrible to me is sickness in the house, for that increases the
anxiety I always feel and swallows up my last coin; the children must
not perish for want of it. I do not want to make myself out worse than I
am; it grieves me too to see them drooping. But nothing that I do brings
me happiness--at most it moderates my fears. You ask what I am afraid
of?--of everything, everything that can happen to me, for I have no
reason to look forward to anything good. When there is a knock, it may
be a creditor; when people look at Arsinoe in the street, I seem to see
dishonor lurking round her; when my father acts against the advice of
the physician I feel as if we were standing already roofless in the open
street. What is there that I can do with a happy mind? I certainly am
not idle, still I envy the woman who can sit with her hands in her
lap and be waited on by slaves, and if a golden treasure fell into my
possession, I would never stir a finger again, and would sleep every
day till the sun was high and make slaves look after my father and the
children. My life is sheer misery. If ever we see better days I shall
be astonished, and before I have got over my astonishment it will all be
over."

The sculptor felt a cold chill, and his heart which had opened wide to
his old playfellow shrank again within him. Before he could find the
right words of encouragement which he sought, th