in bed."

Arsinoe shrugged her shoulders, and two minutes after she was standing
with the old slave-woman in front of the gate-house.

A broad beam of light still fell through the half-open door of the
bowery little room, so Euphorion and Doris had not retired to rest and
could at once open the palace-gate for her. The Graces set up a bark as
Arsinoe crossed the threshold of her old friends' house, but they did
not leave their cushion for they soon recognized her.

It was several years since Arsinoe, in obedience to her father's strict
prohibition had set foot in the snug the house, and her heart was deeply
touched as she saw again all the surroundings she had loved as a child,
and had not forgotten as she grew into girlhood. There were the birds,
the little dogs, and the lutes on the wall near the Apollo. On worthy
dame Doris' table there had always been something to eat, and there,
now, good a lovely, golden-brown cake, by the side of the wine-jar. How
often as a child had she sneaked in to beg a sweet morsel, how often to
see whether tall Pollux were not there, Pollux, whose bold devices and
original suggestions, gave his work and his play alike, the stamp
of genius, and lent them a peculiar charm. And there sat her saucy
playfellow in person, his legs stretched at full length in front of him,
and talking, eagerly. Arsinoe heard him relating the end of the history
of her being chosen for Roxana, and caught her own name, graced with
such epithets as brought the blushes to her cheeks, and gave her double
pleasure because he could not guess that she could overhear them. From
a boy he had grown to a man, and a fine man, and a great artist--but he
was still the old kind and audacious Pollux.

The sudden leap with which he sprang from his seat to welcome her, the
frank laughter with which he several times interrupted her speech, the
childlike loving way in which he held his arm round his little mother
while he greeted her, and asked why she was going out so late, the
winning, touching tone of his voice as he expressed his regret at
Selene's mishaps--all went home to Arsinoe as a thing known and loved,
of which she had long been deprived, and she clung to the two strong
hands he held out to her. If at that moment he had taken her up, and
clasped her to his heart before the very eyes of Eupliorion and his
mother she really would have been incapable of resisting him.

It was with a heavy heart that Arsinoe had gone into d