ght," the painter drew her arm through
his, and they made their way through the now thinning crowd.

CHAPTER IV.

The houses of the embalmers, which earlier in the evening had shone
brightly out of the darkness, now made a less splendid display. The dust
kicked up by the crowd dimmed the few lamps and torches which had not by
this time burned out or been extinguished, and an oppressive atmosphere
of balsamic resin and spices met the brother and sister on the very
threshold. The vast hall which they now entered was one of a long row
of buildings of unburned bricks; but the Greeks insisted on some
ornamentation of the simplest structure, if it served a public purpose,
and the embalming-houses had a colonnade along their front, and their
walls were covered with stucco, painted in gaudy colors, here in the
Egyptian and there in the Greek taste. There were scenes from the
Egyptian realm of the dead, and others from the Hellenic myths; for
the painters had been enjoined to satisfy the requirements and views of
visitors of every race. The chief attraction, however, this night
was within; for the men whose duties were exercised on the dead had
displayed the finest and best of what they had to offer to their
customers.

The ancient Greek practice of burning the dead had died out under the
Antonines. Of old, the objects used to deck the pyre had also been
on show here; now there was nothing to be seen but what related to
interment or entombment.

Side by side with the marble sarcophagus, or those of coarser stone,
were wooden coffins and mummy-cases, with a place at the head for the
portrait of the deceased. Vases and jars of every kind, amulets of
various forms, spices and balsams in vials and boxes, little images in
burned clay of the gods and of men, of which none but the Egyptians knew
the allegorical meaning, stood in long rows on low wooden shelves. On
the higher shelves were mummy bands and shrouds, some coarse, others of
the very finest texture, wigs for the bald heads of shaven corpses, or
woolen fillets, and simply or elaborately embroidered ribbons for the
Greek dead.

Nothing was lacking of the various things in use for decking the corpse
of an Alexandrian, whatever his race or faith.

Some mummy-cases, too, were there, ready to be packed off to other
towns. The most costly were covered with fine red linen, wound about
with strings of beads and gold ornaments, and with the name of the
dead painted on the