those on whom this queen's hand may fall! Euergetes cleaves with the
sword all that comes in his way. Cleopatra stabs with the dagger, and
her hand wields the united power of her own might and of her yielding
husband's. Do not provoke her. Submit to what you cannot avert; just as
I never complain when, if I make a mistake in reading, she snatches the
book from my hand, or flings it at my feet. But I, of course, have only
myself to fear for, and you have your husband and children as well."

Praxinoa bowed her head at these words in sad assent, and said:

"Thank you for those words! I always think only from my heart, and you
mostly from your head. You are right, this time again there is nothing
for me to do but to be patient; but when I have fulfilled the duties
here, which I undertook, and am at home again, I will offer a great
sacrifice to Asclepias and Hygiea, like a person recovered from a severe
illness; and one thing I know: that I would rather be a poor girl,
grinding at a mill, than change with this rich and adored queen who, in
order to enjoy her life to the utmost, carelessly and restlessly hurries
past all that our mortal lot has best to offer. Terrible, hideous to me
seems such an existence with no rest in it! and the heart of a mother
which is so much occupied with other things that she cannot win the love
of her child, which blossoms for every hired nurse, must be as waste as
the desert! Rather would I endure anything--everything--with patience
than be such a queen!"

CHAPTER VIII.

"What! No one to come to meet me?" asked the queen, as she reached the
foot of the last flight of porphyry steps that led into the ante-chamber
to the banqueting-hall, and, looking round, with an ominous glance, at
the chamberlains who had accompanied her, she clinched her small fist.
"I arrive and find no one here!"

The "No one" certainly was a figure of speech, since more than a hundred
body-guards-Macedonians in rich array of arms-and an equal number of
distinguished court-officials were standing on the marble flags of the
vast hall, which was surrounded by colonnades, while the star-spangled
night-sky was all its roof; and the court-attendants were all men of
rank, dignified by the titles of fathers, brothers, relatives, friends
and chief-friends of the king.

These all received the queen with a many-voiced "Hail!" but not one of
them seemed worthy of Cleopatra's notice. This crowd was less to her
than the air we