which held his head tightly by the hair, would allow.
It was only the blind Helios, a pretty boy of six, that he drew to his
side and gave a kiss on his cheek. He loved this child, who, though
deprived of the noblest of the senses, was always merry and contented,
with peculiar tenderness. Once he even laughed aloud when the child
clung to his sister, as she brandished the tongs, and said:

"Father, do you know why I am sorry I cannot see?"

"Well?" said his father.

"Because I should so like to see you for once with the beautiful curls
which Arsinoe makes with the irons." But the steward's mirth was checked
when his daughter, pausing in her labors, said half in jest, but half in
earnest:

"Have you thought any more about the Emperor's arrival, father? I
smarten and dress you so fine every day--but to-day you ought to think
of dressing me."

"We will see about it," said Keraunus evasively. "Do you know," said
Arsinoe, after a short pause, as she twisted the last lock in the
freshly-heated tongs, "I thought it all over last night again. If we
cannot succeed any way in scraping together the money for my dress, we
can still--"

"Well?"

"Even Selene can say nothing against it."

"Against what?"

"But, you will be angry!"

"Speak out."

"You pay taxes like the rest of the citizens."

"What has that to do with it?"

"Well then, we are justified in expecting something from the city."

"What for?"

"To pay for my dress for the festival which is got up for the Emperor,
not by an individual, but by the citizens as a body. We could not accept
alone, but it is folly to refuse what a rich municipality offers. That
is neither more nor less than making them a present."

"You be silent," cried Keraunus, really furious, and trying in vain to
remember the argument with which, only yesterday, he had refused the
same suggestion. "Be silent, and wait till I begin to talk about such
matters."

Arsinoe flung the tongs on the hearth with so much annoyance that
they fell on the stone with a loud clatter; but her father quitted the
kitchen and returned to the sitting-room. There he found Selene lying on
a couch, and the old slave-woman, who had tied a wet handkerchief round
the girl's head, pressing another to her bare left foot.

"Wounded!" cried Keraunus, and his eyes rolled slowly from right to left
and from left to right.

"Look at the swelling!" cried the old woman in broken Greek, raising
Selene's snow-white foot