e been off long ago if only you could
make his porridge to his mind. As soon as I have dished it I will go to
seek Alexander--there is nothing to prevent me--for it was with him that
she left the house."

At this the old woman dried her tears, and cried "Yes, only go, and make
haste. I will do everything else. Great gods, if she should be brought
home dead! I know how it is; she could bear the old man's temper and
this moping life no longer, and has thrown herself into the water.

"My dream, my dream! Here--here is the dish, and now go and find the
boy. Still, Philip is the elder."

"He!" exclaimed the slave in a scornful tone. "Yes, if you want to know
what the flies are talking about! Alexander for me. He has his head
screwed on the right way, and he will find her if any man in Egypt can,
and bring her back, alive or dead."

"Dead!" echoed Dido, with a fresh burst of sobs, and her tears fell
in the porridge, which Argutis, indeed, in his distress of mind had
forgotten to salt.

While this conversation was going on the gemcutter was feeding his
birds. Can this man, who stands there like any girl, tempting his
favorites to feed, with fond words and whistling, and the offer of
attractive dainties, be the stormy blusterer of last night? There is
not a coaxing name that he does not lavish on them, while he fills their
cups with fresh seed and water; and how carefully he moves his big hand
as he strews the little cages with clean sand! He would not for worlds
scare the poor little prisoners who cheer his lonely hours, and who
have long since ceased to fear him. A turtle-dove takes peas, and a
hedge-sparrow picks ants' eggs from his lips; a white-throat perches on
his left hand to snatch a caterpillar from his right. The huge man
was in his garden soon after sunrise gathering the dewy leaves for his
feathered pets. But he talks and plays longest with the starling which
his lost wife gave him. She had bought it in secret from the Bedouin who
for many years had brought shells for sale from the Red Sea, to surprise
her husband with the gift. The clever bird had first learned to call
her name, Olympias; and then, without any teaching, had picked up his
master's favorite lament, "My strength, my strength!"

Heron regarded this bird as a friend who understood him, and, like him,
remembered the never-to-be-forsaken dead. For three years had the gem
cutter been a widower, and he still thought more constantly and fondly
of his