r a few days. The worthy
Persian and Mary were very good friends; as soon as he heard that his
benefactress was alarmed he pushed his way to her, with the child, and
the widow breathed more freely when he offered to remain near her and
protect her.

Meanwhile the yelling and shouting were louder than ever. Every face,
every eye was turned to the Curia, in the evident expectation of
something great and strange taking place there.

"What is it?" asked Mary, pulling at Rustem's coat. The giant said
nothing, but he stooped, and to her delight, a moment later she had her
feet on his arms, which he folded across his chest, and was settling
herself on his broad shoulder whence she could survey men and things as
from a tower. Joanna laid her hand in some tremor on the child's little
feet, but Mary called down to her: "Mother--Pulcheria--I am quite sure
our old Horapollo's white ass is standing in front of the Curia, and
they are putting a garland round the beast's neck--a garland of olive."

At this moment the blare of a tuba rang out from the Senate-house across
the square, through the suffocatingly hot, quivering air; a sudden
silence fell and spread till, when a man opened his mouth to shout or to
speak, a neighbor gave him a shove and bid him hold his tongue. At this
the widow held Mary's ankles more tightly, asking, while she wiped the
drops from her brow:

"What is going on?" and the child answered quickly, never taking her
eyes off the scene:

"Look, look up at the balcony of the Curia; there stands the chief of
the Senate--Alexander the dyer of purple--he often used to come to see
my grandfather, and grandmother could not bear his wife. And by his
side--do you not see who the man is close by him?

"It is old Horapollo. He is taking the laurel-crown off his
wig!--Alexander is going to speak."

She was interrupted by another trumpet call, and immediately after a
loud, manly voice was heard from the Curia, while the silence was so
profound that even the widow and her daughter lost very little of the
speech which followed:

"Fellow-citizens, Memphites, and comrades in misfortune," the president
began in slow, ringing tones, "you know what the sufferings are which we
all share. There is not a woe that has not befallen us, and even worse
loom before us."

The crowd expressed their agreement by a fearful outcry, but they were
reduced to silence by the sound of the tuba, and the speaker went on:

"We, the Senate, t