time after long years, and I felt directly that there was not a dearer
man than he in the whole world, wide as it is. And he fell in love too
with a stupid little thing like me. Yesterday evening he came here with
me; and then as I went home, taking his arm in the dark through the
streets, then--Oh, Selene, it was splendid, delightful! You cannot
imagine!--Does your foot hurt you very much, poor dear? Your eyes are
full of tears."

"Go on, tell me all, go on."

And Arsinoe did as she was desired, sparing the poor girl nothing that
could widen and deepen the wound in her soul. Full of rapturous memories
she described the place in the streets where Pollux had first kissed
her. The shrubs in the garden where she had flung herself into his arms,
her blissful walk in the moonlight, and all the crowd assembled for
the festival, and finally how, possessed by the god, they had together
joined the procession, and danced through the streets. She described,
with tears in her eyes, how painful their parting had been, and laughed
again, as she told how an ivy leaf in her hair had nearly betrayed
everything to her father. So she talked and talked, and there was
something that intoxicated her in her own words.

How they were affecting Selene she did not observe. How could she know
that it was her narrative and no other suffering which made her sister's
lips quiver so sorrowfully? Then, when she went on to speak of the
splendid garments which Julia was having made for her, the suffering
girl listened with only half an ear, but her attention revived when she
heard how much old Plutarch had offered for the ivory cup, and that her
father proposed to exchange their old slave for a more active one.

"Our good black mouse-catching old stork looks shabby enough it is
true," said Arsinoe, "still I am very sorry he should go away. If you
had been at home, perhaps father would have waited to consider."

Selene laughed drily, and her lips curled scornfully as she said:

"That is the way! go on! two days before you are turned out of house and
home you ride in a chariot and pair!"

"You always see the worst side," said Arsinoe with annoyance. "I tell
you it will all turn out far better and nicer and more happily than we
expect. As soon as we are a little richer we will buy back the old man,
and keep him and feed him till he dies."

Selene shrugged her shoulders, and her sister jumped up from her seat
with her eyes full of tears. She had be