d will not learn to
speak, and that provokes Pianchi."

"He will spoil everything again!" exclaimed Klea annoyed. "Where is he?"

"He was wanted in the temple."

"And is he not pleased that Philo calls him 'father,' and you 'mother,'
and me by my name, and that he learns to distinguish many things?" asked
the girl.

"Oh, yes of course," said the woman. "He says you are teaching him to
speak just as if he were a starling, and we are very much obliged to
you."

"That is not what I want," interrupted Klea. "What I wish is that you
should not punish and scold the boy, and that you should be as glad as
I am when you see his poor little dormant soul slowly waking up. If
he goes on like this, the poor little fellow will be quite sharp and
intelligent. What is my name, my little one?"

"Ke-ea," stammered the child, smiling at his friend. "And now taste
this that I have in my hand; what is it?--I see you know. It is
called--whisper in my ear. That's right, mil--mil-milk! to be sure, my
tiny, it is milk. Now open your little mouth and say it prettily after
me--once more--and again--say it twelve times quite right and I will
give you a kiss--Now you have earned a pretty kiss--will you have it
here or here? Well, and what is this? your ea-? Yes, your ear. And
this?--your nose, that is right."

The child's eyes brightened more and more under this gentle teaching,
and neither Klea nor her pupil were weary till, about an hour later, the
re-echoing sound of a brass gong called her away. As she turned to
go the little one ran after her crying; she took him in her arms and
carried him back to his mother, and then went on to her own room to
dress herself and her sister for the procession. On the way to the
Pastophorium she recalled once more her expedition to the temple and her
prayer there.

"Even before the sanctuary," said she to herself, "I could not succeed
in releasing my soul from its burden--it was not till I set to work to
loosen the tongue of the poor little child. Every pure spot, it seems to
me, may be the chosen sanctuary of some divinity, and is not an infant's
soul purer than the altar where truth is mocked at?"

In their room she found Irene; she had dressed her hair carefully and
stuck the pomegranate-flower in it, and she asked Klea if she thought
she looked well.

"You look like Aphrodite herself," replied Klea kissing her forehead.
Then she arranged the folds of her sister's dress, fastened on the
ornamen