oo, had done the same, but now a powerful impulse urged him to confide
in Archibius. He knew Barine, and wished her the greatest happiness.
Perhaps it would be wise to let another person, who was kindly disposed,
consider what his own heart so eagerly demanded and prudence forbade.

Hastily forming his resolution, he again turned to his friend, saying:

"You have shown yourself a father to me. Imagine that I am indeed your
son, and, as such wished to confess that a woman had become dear to my
heart, and to ask whether you would be glad to greet her as a daughter."

Here Archibius interrupted him with the exclamation: "A ray of light amid
all this gloom? Grasp what you have too long neglected as soon as
possible! It befits a good citizen to marry. The Greek does not attain
full manhood till he becomes husband and father. If I have remained
unwedded, there was a special reason for it, and how often I have envied
the cobbler whom I saw standing before his shop in the evening, holding
his child in his arms, or the pilot, to whom large and small hands were
stretched in greeting when he returned home! When I enter my dwelling
only my dogs rejoice. But you, whose beautiful palace stands empty, to
whose proud family it is due that you should provide for its
continuance--"

"That is just what brings me into a state of indecision, which is usually
foreign to my nature," interrupted Dion. "You know me and my position in
the world, and you have also known from her earliest childhood the woman
to whom I allude."

"Iras?" asked his companion, hesitatingly. His sister, Charmian, had told
him of the love felt by the Queen's younger waiting-woman.

But Dion eagerly denied this, adding I am speaking of Barine, the
daughter of your dead friend Leonax. "I love her, yet my pride is
sensitive, and I know that it will extend to my future wife. The
contemptuous glances which others might cast at her I should scorn, for I
know her worth. Surely you remember my mother: she was a very different
woman. Her house, her child, the slaves, her loom, were everything to
her. She rigidly exacted from other women the chaste reserve which was a
marked trait in her own character. Yet she was gentle, and loved me, her
only son, beyond aught else. I think she would have opened her arms to
Barine, had she believed that she was necessary to my happiness. But
would the young beauty, accustomed to gay intercourse with distinguished
men, have been able to sub