ts, and proceeded to dress herself. While she was fastening
her sandals Irene asked her, "Why do you sigh so bitterly?" and Klea
replied, "I feel as if I had lost my parents a second time."

CHAPTER V.

The procession was over.

At the great service which had been performed before him in the Greek
Serapeum, Ptolemy Philometor had endowed the priests not with the whole
but with a considerable portion of the land concerning which they
had approached him with many petitions. After the court had once more
quitted Memphis and the procession was broken up, the sisters returned
to their room, Irene with crimson cheeks and a smile on her lips, Klea
with a gloomy and almost threatening light in her eyes.

As the two were going to their room in silence a temple-servant called
to Klea, desiring her to go with him to the high-priest, who wished to
speak to her. Klea, without speaking, gave her water-jar to Irene and
was conducted into a chamber of the temple, which was used for keeping
the sacred vessels in. There she sat down on a bench to wait. The two
men who in the morning had visited the Pastophorium had also followed
in the procession with the royal family. At the close of the solemnities
Publius had parted from his companion without taking leave, and without
looking to the right or to the left, he had hastened back to the
Pastophorium and to the cell of Serapion, the recluse.

The old man heard from afar the younger man's footstep, which fell
on the earth with a firmer and more decided tread than that of the
softly-stepping priests of Serapis, and he greeted him warmly with signs
and words.

Publius thanked him coolly and gravely, and said, dryly enough and with
incisive brevity:

"My time is limited. I propose shortly to quit Memphis, but I promised
you to hear your request, and in order to keep my word I have come to
see you; still--as I have said--only to keep my word. The water-bearers
of whom you desired to speak to me do not interest me--I care no more
about them than about the swallows flying over the house yonder."

"And yet this morning you took a long walk for Klea's sake," returned
Serapion.

"I have often taken a much longer one to shoot a hare," answered the
Roman. "We men do not pursue our game because the possession of it is
any temptation, but because we love the sport, and there are sporting
natures even among women. Instead of spears or arrows they shoot with
flashing glances, and when they