before I call you grown
up! In two years time, you will scarcely be up to my eyes." At this the
irascible Egyptian fired up; she gave the child a slap in the face with
the palm of her hand. Mary only stood still as if petrified, and after
gazing at the ground for a minute or two without a cry, she turned her
back on her companion and silently went back into the shaded walk.

Katharina watched her with tears in her eyes. She felt that Mary was
justified in disapproving of what she had done the day before; for she
herself had been unable to sleep and had become more and more convinced
that she had acted wrongly, nay, unpardonably. And now again she had
done an inexcusable thing. She felt that she had deeply hurt the child's
feelings, and this sincerely grieved her. She followed Mary in silence,
at some little distance, like a maid-servant. She longed to hold her
back by her dress, to say something kind to her, nay, to ask her pardon.
As they drew near to the spot where the governess had dropped into her
chair again, a hapless victim to the heat of Egypt, Katharina called
Mary by her name, and when the child paid no heed, laid her hand on
her shoulder, saying in gentle entreaty: "Forgive me for having so far
forgotten myself. But how can I help being so little? You know very well
when any one laughs at me for it...."

"You get angry and slap!" retorted the child, walking on. "Yesterday,
perhaps, I might have laughed over a box on the ear--it is not the
first--or have given it to you back again; but to-day!--Just now," and
she shuddered involuntarily, "just now I felt as if some black slave
had laid his dirty hand on my cheek. You are not what you were. You walk
quite differently, and you look--depend upon it you do not look as nice
and as bright as you used, and I know why: You did a very bad thing last
evening."

"But dear pet," said the other, "you must not be so hard. Perhaps I did
not really tell the judges everything I knew, but Orion, who loves me
so, and whose wife I am to be...."

"He led you into sin!--Yes; and he was always merry and kind till
yesterday; but since--Oh, that unlucky day!"

Here she was interrupted by Eudoxia, who poured out a flood of
reproaches and finally desired her to resume her task. The child obeyed
unresistingly; but she had scarcely settled to her wax tablets again
when Katharina was by her side, whispering to her that Orion would
certainly not have asserted anything that he did not