s. The shriveled, irritable old lady often spoke words hard
to be forgiven, but she had not a bad heart; and when she learned that
Diodoros was in danger, she felt only how much she loved him, and her
proposal to go to the town next morning to nurse him was sincerely
meant.

But when her brother retorted: "Go, by all means; I do not prevent you!"
she started up, exclaiming:

"And you, and your aches and pains! How you get on when once my back is
turned, we know by experience. My presence alone is medicine to you."
"And a bitter dose it is very often," replied the old man, with a laugh;
but Praxilla promptly retorted: "Like all effectual remedies. There is
your ingratitude again!"

The last words were accompanied by a whimper, so Polybius, who could not
bear to see any but cheerful faces, raised his cup and drank her health
with kindly words. Then refilling the tankard, he poured a libation, and
was about to empty it to Melissa's health, but Praxilla's lean frame was
standing by his side as quickly as though a serpent had stung her. She
was drawing a stick of asparagus between her teeth, but she hastily
dropped it on her plate, and with both hands snatched the cup from her
brother, exclaiming:

"It is the fourth; and if I allow you to empty it, you are a dead man!"

"Death is not so swift," replied Polybius, signing to a slave to bring
him back the cup. But he drank only half of it, and, at his sister's
pathetic entreaties, had more water mixed with the wine. And while
Praxilla carefully prepared his crayfish--for gout had crippled even his
fingers--he beckoned to his white-haired body-slave, and with a cunning
smile made him add more wine to the washy fluid. He fixed his twinkling
glance on Melissa, to invite her sympathy in his successful trick, but
her appearance startled him. How pale the child was--how dejected and
weary her sweet face, with the usually bright, expressive eyes!

It needed not the intuition of his kind heart to tell him that she was
completely exhausted, and he desired his sister to take her away to bed.
But Melissa was already sound asleep, and Praxilla would not wake her.
She gently placed a pillow under her head, laid her feet easily on the
couch, and covered them with a wrap. Polybius feasted his eyes on the
fair sleeper; and, indeed, nothing purer and more tender can be imagined
than the girl's face as she lay in dreamless slumber.

The conversation was now carried on in subdued tones, so