ister, she knew, though heedless and easily
persuaded, was incapable of any base action.

Where was she to seek the lost girl? Serapion, the recluse, to whom she
first addressed herself, knew nothing of her.

On the altar of Serapis, whither she next went, she found both the
vessels, and carried them back to her room.

Perhaps Irene had gone to see old Krates, and while watching his work
and chattering to him, had forgotten the flight of time--but no, the
priest-smith, whom she sought in his workshop, knew nothing of the
vanished maiden. He would willingly have helped Klea to seek for his
favorite, but the new lock for the tombs of the Apis had to be finished
by mid-day, and his swollen feet were painful.

Klea stood outside the old man's door sunk in thought, and it occurred
to her that Irene had often, in her idle hours, climbed up into the
dove-cot belonging to the temple, to look out from thence over the
distant landscape, to visit the sitting birds, to stuff food into the
gaping beaks of the young ones, or to look up at the cloud of soaring
doves. The pigeon-house, built up of clay pots and Nile-mud, stood on
the top of the storehouse, which lay adjoining the southern boundary
wall of the temple.

She hastened across the sunny courts and slightly shaded alleys, and
mounted to the flat roof of the storehouse, but she found there neither
the old dove-keeper nor his two grandsons who helped him in his work,
for all three were in the anteroom to the kitchen, taking their dinner
with the temple-servants.

Klea shouted her sister's name; once, twice, ten times--but no one
answered. It was just as if the fierce heat of the sun burnt up the
sound as it left her lips. She looked into the first pigeon-house, the
second, the third, all the way to the last. The numberless little clay
tenements of the brisk little birds threw out a glow like a heated oven;
but this did not hinder her from hunting through every nook and corner.
Her cheeks were burning, drops of perspiration stood on her brow,
and she had much difficulty in freeing herself from the dust of the
pigeon-houses, still she was not discouraged.

Perhaps Irene had gone into the Anubidium, or sanctuary of Asclepius,
to enquire as to the meaning of some strange vision, for there, with
the priestly physicians, lived also a priestess who could interpret
the dreams of those who sought to be healed even better than a certain
recluse who also could exercise that scienc