r own. Eternal gods! such
beauty as that is sublime. Why are there no means of preserving such a
face and such a form from old age and wrinkles?"

"I know the means, mother," said Pollux, as he went to the door. "It is
called Art: to her it is given to bestow eternal youth on this mortal
Adonis."

The old woman glanced at her son with pardonable pride, and confirmed his
words by an assenting nod. While she fed her birds, with many coaxing
words, and made one which was a special favorite pick crumbs from her
lips, the young sculptor was hurrying through the streets with long
steps.

He was greeted as he went with many a cross word, and many exclamations
rose from the crowd he left behind him, for he pushed his way by the
weight of his tall person and his powerful arms, and saw and heard, as he
went, little enough of what was going around him. He thought of Arsinoe,
and between whiles of Antinous and of the attitude in which he best might
represent him--whether as hero or god.

In the flower-market, near the Gymnasium, he was for a moment roused from
his reverie by a picture which struck him as being unusual and which
riveted his gaze, as did every thing exceptional that came under his
eyes. On a very small dark-colored donkey sat a tall, well-dressed slave,
who held in his right hand a nosegay of extraordinary size and beauty. By
his side walked a smartly dressed-up man with a splendid wreath, and a
comic mask over his face followed by two garden-gods of gigantic stature,
and four graceful boys. In the slave, Pollux at once recognized the
servant of Claudius Venator, and he fancied he must have seen the masked
gentlemen too before now, but he could not remember where, and did not
trouble himself to retrace him in his mind. At any rate, the rider of the
donkey had just heard something he did not like, for he was looking
anxiously at his bunch of flowers.

After Pollux had hurried past this strange party his thoughts reverted to
other, and to him far nearer and dearer subjects. But Mastor's anxious
looks were not without a cause, for the gentleman who was talking to him
was no less a person than Verus, the praetor, who was called by the
Alexandrians the sham Eros. He had seen the Emperor's body-slave a
hundred times about his person; he therefore recognized him at once, and
his presence here in Alexandria led him directly to the simple and
correct inference that his master too must be in the city. The praetor's
curio