ician who is paid to attend on the factory people will be here
directly, and will order what is proper for your poor foot. The manager
is having a litter fetched for you.--Where do you live?"

"We?" cried Selene, alarmed. "No, no, I must go home."

"But my child you cannot walk farther than the court-yard even if we both
help you."

"Then let me get a litter out in the street. My father--no one must
know--I cannot."

Hannah signed to Mary to leave them, and when she had shut the door on
the deformed girl, she brought a stool, sat down opposite to Selene, laid
a hand on the knee that was not hurt, and said:

"Now, dear girl, we are alone. I am no chatterbox, and will certainly not
betray your confidence. Tell me quietly who you belong to. Tell me--you
believe that I mean well by you?"

"Yes," replied Selene, looking the widow full in the face--a
regularly-cut face, set in abundant smooth brown hair, and with the stamp
of genuine and heart-felt goodness. "Yes--you remind me of my mother."

"Well, I might be your mother."

"I am nineteen years old already."

"Already," replied Hannah, with a smile. "Why my life has been twice as
long as yours. I had a child, too, a boy; and he was taken from me when
he was quite little. He would be a year older than you now, my child--is
your mother still alive?"

"No," said Selene, with her old dry manner, that had become a habit. "The
gods have taken her from us. She would have been, like you, not quite
forty now, and she was as pretty and as kind as you are. When she died
she left seven children besides me, all little, and one of them blind. I
am the eldest, and do what I can for them, that they may not be starved."

"God will help you in the loving task."

"The gods!" exclaimed Selene, bitterly. "They let them grow up, the rest
I have to see to--oh! my foot, my foot!"

"Yes, we will think of that before anything else. Your father is alive?"

"Yes."

"And he is not to know that you work here?"

Selene shook her head.

"He is in moderate circumstances, but of good family?"

"Yes."

"Here, I think, is the doctor. Well? May I know your father's name? I
must if I am to get you safe home."

"I am the daughter of Keraunus, the steward of the palace, and we have
rooms there, at Lochias," Selene answered, with rapid decision, but in a
low whisper, so that the physician, who just then opened the room door,
might not hear her. "No one, and least of all, my father, must kn