she begins to arrange her long
and shining brown hair. She is not particularly skilful and even less
patient over this not very easy task, and presently, when a fresh tangle
checks the horn comb with which she is dressing it, she tosses the comb
on to the couch. She has not pulled it through her hair with any haste
nor with much force, but she shuts her eyes so tightly and sets her
white teeth so firmly in her red dewy lip that it might be supposed that
she had hurt herself very much.

A shuffling step is now audible outside the door; she opens wide her
tawny-hazel eyes, that have a look of gazing on the world in surprise,
a smile parts her lips and her whole aspect is as completely changed as
that of a butterfly which escapes from the shade into the sunshine where
the bright beams are reflected in the metallic lustre of its wings.

A hasty hand knocks at the ill-hung door, so roughly that it trembles on
its hinges, and the instant after a wooden trencher is shoved in through
the wide chink by which the cat made her escape; on it are a thin
round cake of bread and a shallow earthen saucer containing a little
olive-oil; there is no more than might perhaps be contained in half an
ordinary egg-shell, but it looks fresh and sweet, and shines in clear,
golden purity. The girl goes to the door, pulls in the platter, and, as
she measures the allowance with a glance, exclaims half in lament and
half in reproach:

"So little! and is that for both of us?"

As she speaks her expressive features have changed again and her
flashing eyes are directed towards the door with a glance of as much
dismay as though the sun and stars had been suddenly extinguished; and
yet her only grief is the smallness of the loaf, which certainly is
hardly large enough to stay the hunger of one young creature--and two
must share it; what is a mere nothing in one man's life, to another may
be of great consequence and of terrible significance.

The reproachful complaint is heard by the messenger outside the door,
for the old woman who shoved in the trencher over the threshold answers
quickly but not crossly.

"Nothing more to-day, Irene."

"It is disgraceful," cries the girl, her eyes filling with tears, "every
day the loaf grows smaller, and if we were sparrows we should not have
enough to satisfy us. You know what is due to us and I will never cease
to complain and petition. Serapion shall draw up a fresh address for us,
and when the king knows ho