eyes he approached the
beautiful basilisk, and stammered out some commonplace; and she, full of
smiles, turned to him at once.

'Tell us more about yourself before we part. You speak such beautiful
Greek--true Athenian. It is quite delightful to hear one's own accent
again. Were you ever at Athens?'

'When I was a child; I recollect--that is, I think--'

'What?' asked Pelagia eagerly.

'A great house in Athens--and a great battle there--and coming to Egypt
in a ship.'

'Heavens!' said Pelagia, and paused.... 'How strange! Girls, who said he
was like me?'

'I'm sure we meant no harm, if we did say it in a joke,' pouted one of
the attendants.

'Like me!--you must come and see us. I have something to say to you ....
You must!'

Philammon misinterpreted the intense interest of her tone, and if he did
not shrink back, gave some involuntary gesture of reluctance. Pelagia
laughed aloud.

'Don't be vain enough to suspect, foolish boy, but come! Do you think
that I have nothing to talk about but nonsense? Come and see me. It
may be better for you. I live in--' and she named a fashionable street,
which Philammon, though he inwardly vowed not to accept the invitation,
somehow could not help remembering.

'Do leave the wild man, and come,' growled the Amal from within the
palanquin. 'You are not going to turn nun, I hope?'

'Not while the first man I ever met in the world stays in it,' answered
Pelagia, as she skipped into the palanquin, taking care to show the most
lovely white heel and ankle, and, like the Parthian, send a random
arrow as she retreated. But the dart was lost on Philammon, who had been
already hustled away by the bevy of laughing attendants, amid baskets,
dressing-cases, and bird-cages, and was fain to make his escape into the
Babel round, and inquire his way to the patriarch's house.

'Patriarch's house?' answered the man whom he first addressed, a little
lean, swarthy fellow, with merry black eyes, who, with a basket of fruit
at his feet, was sunning himself on a baulk of timber, meditatively
chewing the papyrus-cane, and examining the strangers with a look of
absurd sagacity. 'I know it; without a doubt I know it; all Alexandria
has good reason to know it. Are you a monk?'

'Yes.'

'Then ask your way of the monks; you won't go far without finding one.'

'But I do not even know the right direction; what is your grudge against
monks, my good man?'

'Look here, my youth; you seem too ingenuo