at her, was startled; he turned away
from her and tried to hide his little face in the dress of his nurse--a
lady of rank-to whom he clung with both hands. The queen threw herself
on her knees before him, took hold of his shoulder, and partly by
coaxing and partly by insistence strove to induce him to quit the
sheltering gown and to turn to her; but although the lady, his
wet-nurse, seconded her with kind words of encouragement, the terrified
child began to cry, and resisted his mother's caresses with more and
more vehemence the more passionately she tried to attract and conciliate
him. At last the nurse lifted him up, and was about to hand him to his
mother, but the wilful little boy cried more than before, and throwing
his arms convulsively round his nurse's neck he broke into loud cries.

In the midst of this rather unbecoming struggle of the mother against
the child's obstinacy, the clatter of wheels and of horses' hoofs rang
through the court-yard of the palace, and hardly had the sound reached
the queen's ears than she turned away from the screaming child, hurried
to the parapet of the roof, and called out to Zoe:

"Publius Scipio is here; it is high time that I should dress for the
banquet. Will that naughty child not listen to me at all? Take him away,
Praxinoa, and understand distinctly that I am much dissatisfied with
you. You estrange my own child from me to curry favor with the future
king. That is base, or else it proves that you have no tact, and are
incompetent for the office entrusted to you. The office of wet-nurse you
duly fulfilled, but I shall now look out for another attendant for the
boy. Do not answer me! no tears! I have had enough of that with the
child's screaming." With these words, spoken loudly and passionately,
she turned her back on Praxinoa--the wife of a distinguished Macedonian
noble, who stood as if petrified--and retired into her tent, where
branched lamps had just been placed on little tables of elegant
workmanship. Like all the other furniture in the queen's dressing-tent
these were made of gleaming ivory, standing out in fine relief from the
tent-cloth which was sky-blue woven with silver lilies and ears of corn,
and from the tiger-skins which covered all the cushions, while white
woollen carpets, bordered with a waving scroll in blue, were spread on
the ground.

The queen threw herself on a seat in front of her dressing-table, and
sat staring at herself in a mirror, as if she n