ven thanked for
her helpfulness, busily at work in Arsinoe's seat. She looked at her
neighbor with eyes still full of tears, and as the girl, who was wholly
absorbed in her task, did not notice her gaze, Selene said in a tone of
surprise rather than kindliness.

"This is my sister's place; you may sit here to-day, but when the
factory opens again she must sit by me again."

"I know, I know," said the workwoman shyly. "I am only finishing your
sheets because I have no more of my own to do, and I can see how badly
your foot is hurting you."

The whole transaction was so strange and novel to Selene that she did
not even understand her neighbor's meaning, and she only said, with a
shrug:

"You may earn all you can, for aught I can do; I cannot do anything
to-day."

Her deformed companion colored and looked up doubtfully at her opposite
neighbor, who at once laid aside her brush and said, turning to Selene:

"That is not what Mary means, my child. She is doing one-half of your
day's task and I am doing the other, so that your suffering foot may not
deprive you of your day's pay."

"Do I look so very poor then?" exclaimed Keraunus' daughter, and a faint
crimson tinged her pale cheeks.

"By no means, my child," replied the woman. "You and your sister are
evidently of good family--but pray let us have the pleasure of being of
some help to you.

"I do not know--" Selene stammered.

"If you saw that it hurt me to stoop when the wind blows the strips of
papyrus on to the floor, would you not willingly pick them up for me?"
continued the woman. "What we are doing for you is neither less nor yet
much more than that. In a few minutes we shall have finished and then we
can follow the others, for every one else has left. I am the overseer
of the room, as you know, and must in any case remain here till the last
work-woman has gone."

Selene felt full well that she ought to be grateful for the kindness
shown her by these two women, and yet she had a sense of having a deed
of almsgiving forced upon her acceptance, and she answered quickly,
still with the blood mounting to her cheeks. "I am very grateful for
your good intentions, of course, very grateful; but here each one must
work for herself, and it would ill-become me to allow you to give me the
money you have earned."

The girl spoke these words with a decisiveness which was not free
from arrogance, but this did not disturb the woman's gentle
equanimity--"widow Hannah