broken with sobs:

"Oh Klea! poor, dear Klea, what have I done! but indeed I did not mean
any harm. I don't know how it happened. Whatever I feel prompted to do I
do, I can't help doing it, and it is not till it is done that I begin to
know whether it was right or wrong. You sat up and worried yourself for
me, and this is how I repay you--I am a bad girl! But you shall not go
hungry--no, you shall not."

"Never mind; never mind," said the elder, and she stroked her sister's
brown hair with a loving hand.

But as she did so she came upon the violets fastened among the shining
tresses. Her lips quivered and her weary expression changed as she
touched the flowers and glanced at the empty saucer in which she had
carefully placed them the clay before. Irene at once perceived the change
in her sister's face, and thinking only that she was surprised at her
pretty adornment, she said gaily: "Do you think the flowers becoming to
me?"

Klea's hand was already extended to take the violets out of the brown
plaits, for her sister was still kneeling before her, but at this
question her arm dropped, and she said more positively and distinctly
than she had yet spoken and in a voice, whose sonorous but musical tones
were almost masculine and certainly remarkable in a girl:

"The bunch of flowers belongs to me; but keep it till it is faded, by
mid-day, and then return it to me."

"It belongs to you?" repeated the younger girl, raising her eyes in
surprise to her sister, for to this hour what had been Klea's had been
hers also. "But I always used to take the flowers you brought home; what
is there special in these?"

"They are only violets like any other violets," replied Klea coloring
deeply. "But the queen has worn them."

"The queen!" cried her sister springing to her feet and clasping her
hands in astonishment. "She gave you the flowers? And you never told me
till now? To be sure when you came home from the procession yesterday you
only asked me how my foot was and whether my clothes were whole and then
not another mortal word did you utter. Did Cleopatra herself give you
this bunch?"

"How should she?" retorted Klea. "One of her escort threw them to me; but
drop the subject pray! Give me the water, please, my mouth is parched and
I can hardly speak for thirst."

The bright color dyed her cheeks again as she spoke, but Irene did not
observe it, for--delighted to make up for her evil doings by performing
some little servi