rty-eight hours he must remain in that little room,
for any movement would only delay his recovery."

"Then I shall stay here to nurse him," cried Melissa, eagerly. But
Galenus replied, decisively:

"That must not be if he is to get well. The presence of a woman for whom
the sufferer's heart is on fire is as certain to aggravate the fever as
the scent of incense. Besides, child, this is no place for such as you."

Her head drooped sadly, but he nodded to her cheeringly as he added:

"Ptolemaeus, who is worthy of your entire confidence, speaks of you as a
girl of much sense, and you will surely not do anything to spoil my work,
which was not easy. However, I must say farewell; other sick require my
care."

He held out his hand, but, seeing her eyes fixed on his and glittering
through tears, he asked her name and family. It seemed to him of good
augury for the long hours before him which he must devote to Caesar, that
he should, so early in the day, have met so pure and fair a flower of
girlhood.

When she had told him her own name and her father's, and also mentioned
her brothers, Philip the philosopher, and Alexander the painter, who was
already one of the chief masters of his art here, Galenus answered
heartily:

"All honor to his genius, then, for he is the one-eyed king in the land
of the blind. Like the old gods, who can scarce make themselves heard for
the new, the Muses too have been silenced. The many really beautiful
things to be seen here are not new; and the new, alas! are not beautiful.
But your brother's work," he added, kindly, "may be the exception."

"You should only see his portraits!" cried Melissa.

"Yours, perhaps, among them?" said the old man, with interest. "That is a
reminder I would gladly take back to Rome with me."

Alexander had indeed painted his sister not long before, and how glad she
was to be able to offer the picture to the reverend man to whom she owed
so much! So she promised with a blush to send it him as soon as she
should be at home again.

The unexpected gift was accepted with pleasure, and when he thanked her
eagerly and with simple heartiness, she interrupted him with the
assurance that in Alexandria art was not yet being borne to the grave.
Her brother's career, it was true, threatened to come to an untimely end,
for he stood in imminent danger. On this the old man--who had taken his
seat on a bench which the attendant physicians of the temple had brought
forward-de