seeking out Alexander in
his hiding-place; for Heron, the gem-cutter, was known to every one, and
if a man-at-arms should see him he would certainly follow him. As
regarded the prefect, he would not apprehend any one this day, for, as
her father knew, Caesar was to arrive at Alexandria at noon, and Titianus
must be on the spot to meet him with all his train.

"But if you want to be out of doors and doing," she added, "go to see
Philip. Bring him to reason, and discuss with him what is to be done."

She spoke with firm decision, and Heron looked with amazement at the
giver of this counsel. Melissa had hitherto cared for his comfort in
silence, without expressing any opinions of her own, and submitting to be
the lightning-conductor for all his evil tempers. He did not rate her
girlish beauty very high, for there were no ugly faces in his family nor
in that of his deceased Olympias. And all the other consolations she
offered him he took as a matter of course--nay, he sometimes made them a
ground of complaint; for he would occasionally fancy that she wanted to
assume the place of his beloved lost wife, and he regarded it as a duty
to her to show his daughter, and often very harshly and unkindly, how far
she was from filling her mother's place.

Thus she had accustomed herself to do her duty as a daughter, with quiet
and wordless exactitude, looking for no thanks; while he thought he was
doing her a kindness merely by suffering her constant presence. That he
should ever exchange ideas with his daughter, or ask her opinion, would
have seemed to Heron absolutely impossible; yet it had come to this, and
for the second time this morning he looked in her face with utter
amazement.

He could not but approve her warning not to betray Alexander's
hiding-place, and her suggestion that he should go to see his eldest son
coincided with an unspoken desire which had been lurking in his mind ever
since she had told him of her having seen a disembodied soul. The
possibility of seeing her once more, whose memory was dearer to him than
all else on earth, had such a charm, that it moved him more deeply than
the danger of his son, who was, nevertheless, very dear to his strangely
tempered heart.

So he answered Melissa coolly, as if he were telling her of a decision
already formed:

"Of course! I meant to see Philip too; only"--and he paused, for anxiety
about Alexander again came to the front--"I can not bear to remain in
such uncertai