pporting hand of his kind nurse.

While Hermon, in his own sleeping room, ordered Bias to anoint his hair
and beard and put on festal garments, the slave told him certain things
that destroyed the last remnant of composure in his easily agitated
soul.

With the firm resolution to keep the appointment on Pelican Island,
Hermon had gone at sunset, in response to the Alexandrian's invitation,
to attend her banquet, and by no means unwillingly, for his parents'
old friends were dear to him, and he knew by experience the beneficial
influence Daphne's sunny, warmhearted nature exerted upon him.

Yet this time he did not find what he expected.

In the first place, he had been obliged to witness how earnestly
Philotas was pressing his suit, and perceived that her companion
Chrysilla was most eagerly assisting him. As she saw in the young
aristocrat a suitable husband for the daughter of Archias, and it was
her duty to assign the guests their seats at the banquet, she had given
the cushion beside Daphne to Philotas, and also willingly fulfilled
Althea's desire to have Hermon for her neighbour.

When Chrysilla presented the black-bearded artist to the Thracian, she
would have sworn that Althea found an old acquaintance in the sculptor;
but Hermon treated the far-famed relative of Queen Arsinoe as coldly
and distantly as if he now saw her for the first time, and with little
pleasure.

In truth, he was glad to avoid women of Althea's stamp. For some time he
had preferred to associate with the common people, among whom he found
his best subjects, and kept far aloof from the court circles to which
Althea belonged, and which, thanks to his birth and his ability as an
artist, would easily have been accessible to him also.

The over-refined women who gave themselves airs of avoiding everything
which imposes a restraint upon Nature, and therefore, in their
transparent robes, treated with contempt all that modest Macedonian
dames deemed worthy of a genuine woman's consideration, were repulsive
to him--perhaps because they formed so rude a contrast to his noble dead
mother and to Daphne.

Although he had been very frequently in feminine society, Althea's
manner at first caused him a certain degree of embarrassment; for, in
spite of the fact that he believed he met her here for the first time,
there was something familiar about her, especially in the tone of her
voice, and he fancied that her first words were associated with some