alize their misfortune, for instead of bewailing
themselves all they could do was to act with circumspection. The tables,
seats, cushions, beds and lutes, the baskets, plants, and bird-cages,
the kitchen utensils and the trunks with their clothes were all piled in
confusion in the courtyard, and Doris was employing the slaves appointed
by Mastor in the task of emptying the house, as briskly and carefully as
though it was nothing more than a move from one house to another. A ray
of the sunny brightness of her nature once more sparkled in her eyes
since she had been able to say to herself that all that happened to her
and hers was one of the things inevitable, and that it was more to the
purpose to think of the future than of the past. The old woman was quite
herself again over the work, and as she looked at Euphorion, who sat
quite crushed on his couch with his eyes fixed on the ground, she cried
out to him:

"After bad times, come good ones! only let us keep from making ourselves
miserable. We have done nothing wrong, and so long as we do not think
ourselves wretched, we are not so. Only, hold up your head!

"Up, old man, up! Go at once to Diotima and tell her that we beg her to
give us hospitality for a few days, and house-room for our chattels."

"And if Caesar does not keep his word?" asked Euphorion gloomily. "What
sort of a life shall we live then?"

"A bad one-a dog's life; and for that very reason it is wiser to enjoy
now what we still possess. A cup of wine, Pollux, for me and your
father. But there must be no water in it to-day."

"I cannot drink," sighed Euphorion.

"Then I will drink your share and my own too."

"Nay-nay, mother," remonstrated Pollux.

"Well put some water in, lad, just a little water, only do not make such
a pitiful face. Is that the way a young fellow should look who has
his art, and plenty of strength in his hands, and the sweetest of
sweethearts in his heart?"

"It is certainly not for myself, mother," retorted the sculptor, "that
I am anxious. But how am I ever to get into the palace again to see
Arsinoe, and how am I to deal with that ferocious old Keraunus?"

"Leave that question for time to answer," replied Doris.

"Time may give a good answer, but it may also give a bad one."

"And the best she only gives to those who wait for her in the
antechamber of Patience."

"A bad place for me, and for those like me," sighed Pollux.

"You have only to sit still and go on knocki