that will please you."

"Nothing ever pleases me now she is dead."

"Yes, yes indeed," replied the young sculptor eagerly. "I could not
forget the good soul, and once in my idle moments I modelled her bust
from memory. To-morrow I will bring it to you."

"Oh!" cried Selene, and her large heavy eyes brightened with a sunny
gleam.

"Now, is not it true, you are pleased?"

"Yes indeed, very much. But when my father learns that it is you who have
given me the portrait--"

"Is he capable of destroying it?"

"If he does not destroy it, he will not suffer it in the house as soon as
he knows that you made it." Pollux took the handkerchief from the
steward's head, moistened it afresh, and exclaimed as he rearranged it on
the forehead of the sleeping man:

"I have an idea. All that matters is that my bust should serve to remind
you often of your mother; the bust need not stand in your rooms. The
busts of the women of the house of Ptolemy stand on the rotunda, which
you can see from your balcony, and which you can pass whenever you
please; some of them are badly mutilated and must be got rid of. I will
undertake to restore the Berenice and put your mother's head on her
shoulders. Then you have only to go out and look at her. Will that do?"

"Yes, Pollux; you are a good man."

"So I told you just now. I am beginning to improve. But time--time! if I
am to undertake to repair Berenice I must begin by saving the minutes."

"Go back to your work now; I know how to apply a wet compress only too
well."

With these words Selene threw back her mantle over her shoulders so as to
leave her hands free for use, and stood with her slender figure, her pale
face, and the fine broadly-flowing folds of rich stuff, like a statue in
the eyes of the young sculptor.

"Stop--stay so--just so," cried Pollux to the astonished girl, so loudly
and eagerly that she was startled.

"Your cloak hangs with a wonderfully-free flow from your shoulders--in
the name of all the gods do not touch it. If only I might model from it I
should in a few minutes gain a whole day for our Berenice. I will wet the
handkerchief at intervals in the pauses." Without waiting for Selene's
answer the sculptor hastened into his nook and returned first with one of
the lamps he worked by in each hand, and some small tools in his mouth,
and then fetched his wax model which he placed on the outer side of the
table, behind which the steward was sleeping. The tapers were pu