se in the Kanopus," the guest began. "It was
originally a small summer palace belonging to the royal family, and
underwent little change after we moved into it. Even the garden is
unaltered. It was full of shady old trees. Olympus, the leech, had
chosen this place, that my father might complete within its walls the
work of education entrusted to him. You shall hear the story. At that
time Alexandria was in a state of turmoil, for Rome had not recognized
the King, and ruled over us like Fate, though it had not acknowledged
the will by which the miserable Alexander bequeathed Egypt to him like a
field or a slave.

"The King of Egypt, who called himself 'the new Dionysus,' was a weak
man, whose birth did not give him the full right to the sovereignty.
You know that the people called him the 'fluteplayer.' He really had no
greater pleasure than to hear music and listen to his own performances.
He played by no means badly on more than one instrument, and, moreover,
as a reveller did honour to the other name. Whoever kept sober at the
festival of Dionysus, whose incarnate second self he regarded himself,
incurred his deepest displeasure.

"The flute-player's wife, Queen Tryphoena, and her oldest daughter--she
bore your name, Berenike--ruined his life. Compared with them, the
King was worthy and virtuous. What had become of the heroes and the
high-minded princes of the house of Ptolemy? Every passion and crime had
found a home in their palaces!

"The flute-player, Cleopatra's father, was by no means the worst. He
was a slave to his own caprices; no one had taught him to bridle his
passions. Where it served his purpose, even death was summoned to his
aid; but this was a custom of the last sovereigns of his race. In one
respect he was certainly superior to most of them--he still possessed
a capacity to feel a loathing for the height of crime, to believe in
virtue and loftiness of soul, and the possibility of implanting them
in youthful hearts. When a boy, he had been under the influence of an
excellent teacher, whose precepts had lingered in his memory and led him
to determine to withdraw his favourite children--two girls--from their
mother's sway, at least as far as possible.

"I learned afterwards that it had been his desire to confide the
princesses wholly to my parents' care. But an invincible power opposed
this. Though Greeks might be permitted to instruct the royal children
in knowledge, the Egyptians would not yield t