another of deep suspicion cast at the roll the Roman held in his
hand.

Publius heeded not this glance, but walked quickly towards the
acacia-grove; the recluse looked after the ill-matched pair, and as he
watched the burly Eulaeus following the young man, he put both his hands
on his hips, puffed out his fat cheeks, and burst into loud laughter as
soon as the couple had vanished behind the acacias.

When once Serapion's midriff was fairly tickled it was hard to reduce it
to calm again, and he was still laughing when Klea appeared in front of
his cell some few minutes after the departure of the Roman. He was about
to receive his young friend with a cheerful greeting, but, glancing at
her face, he cried anxiously;

"You look as if you had met with a ghost; your lips are pale instead
of red, and there are dark shades round your eyes. What has happened to
you, child? Irene went with you to the procession, that I know. Have you
had bad news of your parents? You shake your head. Come, child, perhaps
you are thinking of some one more than you ought; how the color rises
in your cheeks! Certainly handsome Publius, the Roman, must have looked
into your eyes--a splendid youth is he--a fine young man--a capital good
fellow--"

"Say no more on that subject," Klea exclaimed, interrupting her friend
and protector, and waving her hand in the air as if to cut off the other
half of Serapion's speech. "I can hear nothing more about him."

"Has he addressed you unbecomingly?" asked the recluse.

"Yes!" said Klea, turning crimson, and with a vehemence quite foreign
to her usual gentle demeanor, "yes, he persecutes me incessantly with
challenging looks."

"Only with looks?" said the anchorite. "But we may look even at the
glorious sun and at the lovely flowers as much as we please, and they
are not offended."

"The sun is too high and the soulless flowers too humble for a man to
hurt them," replied Klea. "But the Roman is neither higher nor lower
than I, the eye speaks as plain a language as the tongue, and what his
eyes demand of me brings the blood to my cheeks and stirs my indignation
even now when I only think of it."

"And that is why you avoid his gaze so carefully?"

"Who told you that?"

"Publius himself; and because he is wounded by your hard-heartedness he
meant to quit Egypt; but I have persuaded him to remain, for if there is
a mortal living from whom I expect any good for you and yours--"

"It is certainly not he