e times, hardly
recognized it, it was so gaily decorated with colored scarfs. And who had
ever seen ladies and young girls filling the best places instead of men,
as was the case to-day? Indeed the citizens' daughters were in general
not permitted to see a theatrical performance at all, unless on very
special and exceptional occasions. She looked up with a smile at the
empty topmost rows of the cheapest seats of the semicircular auditorium,
as one looks at an old playfellow one had outgrown by a head, for it was
there--when she had occasionally been permitted to dip into their scanty
common purse--that she had almost fainted many a time, with pleasure,
fear, or sympathy, though the draught so high up and under the open
heaven which was the only roof, was incessantly blowing; and in summer
the discomforts were even greater from the awning which shaded the
amphitheatre on the sunny side. The wide breadths of canvas were managed
by means of stout ropes, and when these were pulled through the rings
they rode in, they made a screech which compelled the bearer to stop his
ears; and often it was necessary to duck his head not to be hit by the
heavy ropes or by the awning itself. But Arsinoe only remembered these
things to-day as a butterfly sporting in the sun may remember the hideous
pupa-case that it has burst and left behind it.

Radiant with happy excitement, she was led to her seat with her young
companion, the black-haired daughter of the shipwright. She perceived
indeed that numerous eyes turned upon her, but that only added to her
pleasure, for she knew that she could well bear looking at, and there
could be no greater pleasure, as she thought, than to give pleasure to a
multitude.

To-day at any rate! For those who were looking at her were the chief
citizens of Alexandria; they stood on the stage, and among them stood
kind tall Pollux, waving his hand to her. She could not keep her feet
quiet, but she did contrive to keep her arms still by crossing them in
front of her, so that they might not betray how excited she was.

This distribution of parts had already begun, for, by waiting for Selene,
she had come in almost half an hour too late. As soon as she saw that the
eyes that had been attracted to herself as she entered the theatre had
turned to other objects she herself looked round her. She was sitting on
a bench at the lowest and narrowest end of one of the wedge-shaped
sections of seats, which grew wider at the