hor, pray come back to the factory with me. I cannot walk any
farther, my foot is so dreadfully painful; but if I lean a little on
your shoulder, I shall get on better."

"I cannot," said the child. "If I make haste home I shall have some
dates," and she ran on.

Selene looked after her, and an inward voice, against which she had
had to rebel before to-day, asked her why she of all people must be a
sufferer for others, when they thought only of themselves, and with a
heavy sigh, she made a fresh attempt to proceed on her way.

When she had gone a few steps, neither seeing not hearing anything that
passed her, a girl came up to her, and asked her timidly, but kindly,
what was the matter. It was a leaf-joiner who sat opposite to her at the
works, a poor, deformed creature, who, nevertheless, plied her nimble
fingers contentedly and silently, and who at first had taught Selene
and Arsinoe many useful tricks of working. The girl offered her crooked
shoulder unasked as a support to Selene, and measured her step; to
those of the sufferer with as much nicety as if she felt everything that
Selene herself did; thus, without speaking, they reached the door of the
factory; there, in the first court-yard the little hunchback made Selene
sit down on one of the bundles of papyrus-stems which lay all about
the place, by the side of the tanks in which the plants were dipped to
freshen them, and arranged in order, built up into high heaps, according
to the localities whence they were brought. After a short rest, they
went on through the hall in which the triangular green stems were
sorted, according to the quality of the white pith they contained. The
next rooms, in which men stripped the green sheath from the pith, and
the long galleries where the more skilled hands split the pith with
sharp knives into long moist strips about a finger wide, and of
different degrees of fineness, seemed to Selene to grow longer the
farther she went, and to be absolutely interminable.

Generally the pith-splitters sat here in long rows, each at his own
little table, on each side of a gangway left for the slaves, who carried
the prepared material to the drying-house; but, to-day, most of them
had left their places and stood chatting together and packing up their
wooden clips, knives, and sharpening-stones. Half way down this room
Selene's hand fell from her companion's shoulder, she turned giddy, and
said in a low tone:

"I can go no farther--"

Th