ril his
life In public?'

'Give me that little scroll, Cleotos,' said AEnone. 'Let me have it for
my own.'

Cleotos gazed at her for a moment in dismay. Was she about to use her
authority, and take away from him by force those few lines, which,
though he understood them so little, had often served to cheer his heart
with their promises of future rest and joy? If so, he must submit; but
of what avail, then, was all her previous kindness?

'I ask it not as mistress, but as friend,' she said, reading his
thoughts. 'I ask it because, when you are away, I shall need some memory
of what have been happy days, and because I may then often wish to apply
those same words of comfort to my own soul. You can make another copy of
the same, and, in your own land, I doubt not, can find, with proper
search, many more words of equal value.'

'In my own land?' Cleotos repeated, ed, as in a dream. But, though her
meaning did not as yet flash upon him, he knew that she spoke in
kindness, and that she would not ask anything which he would not care to
grant; and he drew the little stained parchment from beneath his tunic,
and handed it to her.

'Close, now, the window, Cleotos, and shut out from sight that giddy
whirl, for I have something to say to you.'

He closed the window with its silken blind; and then, in obedience to
her motion, glided away from before it She seated herself upon her
lounge, and he upon his accustomed stool in front of her.

'Think not, Cleotos,' she said, after a moment's silence, 'that I first
brought you hither to become a mere slave. It was rather done in order
that, when the proper time came, I might set you free. Had
she--Leta--but shown herself worthy of you, the day might have come when
I could have managed to free her also, and send you both home again
together. But that cannot be. You must go alone, Cleotos, but not, I
hope, despairingly. Once again in your own loved Samos, I know that,
sooner or later, there will be found some other one to make you forget
what you have suffered here.'

He could no longer doubt her meaning--she was about to give him to
liberty again. At the thought the blood rushed to his heart, and he
gasped for breath. For the moment, as he gazed into her face and saw
with what sisterly sympathy and compassion she looked upon him, the
impulse came into his mind to refuse the proffered freedom, and ask only
to remain and serve her for life. But then came such floods of memories
of