tion to some
long-departed saint? That is my feeling towards Artemidorus, and if you
only knew what comfort he has shed into the heart of a lonely woman;
what a quiet, unobtrusive friend he has been to me in my solitary,
friendless days, always ready with a kindly greeting on his gentle,
thoughtful face, you would like him for that alone. And I want you to
like him and to share our silent friendship. Am I very silly, very
sentimental?"

A wave of relief had swept over me, and the mercury of my emotional
thermometer, which had shrunk almost into the bulb, leaped up to summer
heat. How charming it was of her and how sweetly intimate, to wish to
share this mystical friendship with me! And what a pretty conceit it
was, too, and how like this strange, inscrutable maiden, to come here
and hold silent converse with this long-departed Greek. And the pathos
of it all touched me deeply amidst the joy of this newborn intimacy.

"Are you scornful?" she asked, with a shade of disappointment, as I made
no reply.

"No, indeed I am not," I answered earnestly. "I want to make you aware
of my sympathy and my appreciation without offending you by seeming to
exaggerate, and I don't know how to express it."

"Oh, never mind about the expression, so long as you feel it. I thought
you would understand," and she gave me a smile that made me tingle to my
finger-tips.

We stood awhile gazing in silence at the mummy--for such, indeed, was
her friend Artemidorus. But not an ordinary mummy. Egyptian in form, it
was entirely Greek in feeling; and brightly coloured as it was, in
accordance with the racial love of colour, the tasteful refinement with
which the decoration of the case was treated made those around look
garish and barbaric. But the most striking feature was a charming panel
portrait which occupied the place of the usual mask. This painting was a
revelation to me. Except that it was executed in tempera instead of oil,
it differed in no respect from modern work. There was nothing archaic or
even ancient about it. With its freedom of handling and its correct
rendering of light and shade, it might have been painted yesterday;
indeed, enclosed in an ordinary gilt frame, it might have passed without
remark in an exhibition of modern portraits.

Miss Bellingham observed my admiration and smiled approvingly.

"It is a charming little portrait, isn't it?" she said; "and such a
sweet face, too; so thoughtful and human with just a shade of