d yield the palm, as it seems to me, not
even to a god!"

"Among us imperfect mortals he would indeed be the only perfect one,"
replied Zoe. "But the gods could not endure the existence of a perfect
man, for then they would have to undertake the undignified task of
competing with one of their own creatures."

"Here, however, comes one whom no one can accuse!" cried the young queen,
as she hastened to meet a richly dressed woman, older than herself, who
came towards her leading her son, a pale child of two years old. She bent
down to the little one, tenderly but with impetuous eagerness, and was
about to clasp him in her arms, but the fragile child, which at first had
smiled at her, was startled; he turned away from her and tried to hide
his little face in the dress of his nurse--a lady of rank-to whom he
clung with both hands. The queen threw herself on her knees before him,
took hold of his shoulder, and partly by coaxing and partly by insistence
strove to induce him to quit the sheltering gown and to turn to her; but
although the lady, his wet-nurse, seconded her with kind words of
encouragement, the terrified child began to cry, and resisted his
mother's caresses with more and more vehemence the more passionately she
tried to attract and conciliate him. At last the nurse lifted him up, and
was about to hand him to his mother, but the wilful little boy cried more
than before, and throwing his arms convulsively round his nurse's neck he
broke into loud cries.

In the midst of this rather unbecoming struggle of the mother against the
child's obstinacy, the clatter of wheels and of horses' hoofs rang
through the court-yard of the palace, and hardly had the sound reached
the queen's ears than she turned away from the screaming child, hurried
to the parapet of the roof, and called out to Zoe:

"Publius Scipio is here; it is high time that I should dress for the
banquet. Will that naughty child not listen to me at all? Take him away,
Praxinoa, and understand distinctly that I am much dissatisfied with you.
You estrange my own child from me to curry favor with the future king.
That is base, or else it proves that you have no tact, and are
incompetent for the office entrusted to you. The office of wet-nurse you
duly fulfilled, but I shall now look out for another attendant for the
boy. Do not answer me! no tears! I have had enough of that with the
child's screaming." With these words, spoken loudly and passionately, she
t