t we should have begun to
talk of that barbarian rubbish; there are so many other subjects more
pleasing and more cheering to the mind. Do you remember how we used to
read the great tragedians and Plato together?"

"And how you would often interrupt our tutor Agatharchides in his
lectures on geography, to point out some mistake! Did you prosecute those
studies in Cyrene?"

"Of course. It really is a pity, Cleopatra, that we should no longer live
together as we did formerly. There is no one, not even Aristarchus, with
whom I find it more pleasant and profitable to converse and discuss than
with you. If only you had lived at Athens in the time of Pericles, who
knows if you might not have been his friend instead of the immortal
Aspasia. This Memphis is certainly not the right place for you; for a few
months in the year you ought to come to Alexandria, which has now risen
to be superior to Athens."

"I do not know you to-day!" exclaimed Cleopatra, gazing at her brother in
astonishment. "I have never heard you speak so kindly and brotherly since
the death of my mother. You must have some great request to make of us."

"You see how thankless a thing it is for me to let my heart speak for
once, like other people. I am like the boy in the fable when the wolf
came! I have so often behaved in an unbrotherly fashion that when I show
the aspect of a brother you think I have put on a mask. If I had had
anything special to ask of you I should have waited till to-morrow, for
in this part of the country even a blind beggar does not like to refuse
his lame comrade anything on his birthday."

"If only we knew what you wish for! Philometor and I would do it more
than gladly, although you always want something monstrous. Our
performance to-morrow will--at any rate--but--Zoe, pray be good enough to
retire with the maids; I have a few words to say to my brother alone."

As soon as the queen's ladies had withdrawn, she went on:

"It is a real grief to use, but the best part of the festival in honor of
your birthday will not be particularly successful, for the priests of
Serapis spitefully refuse us the Hebe about whom Lysias has made us so
curious. Asclepiodorus, it would seem, keeps her in concealment, and
carries his audacity so far as to tell us that someone has carried her
off from the temple. He insinuates that we have stolen her, and demands
her restitution in the name of all his associates."

"You are doing the man an injustice