e dreadful thought, that all these
terrible calamities were come upon the nation only as a part of that
dark doom, for which the gods had marked her out, on her very entrance
into life.

It was long before the Emperor and his immediate household, were made
aware of the awful pressure of famine within that devoted city. Watchful
and observing as he was, the people, with one consent, had contrived to
keep him in comparative ignorance of the growing scarcity, in order that
they might be permitted to supply his table, as long as possible, with
all the necessaries and luxuries of life. So far was this loyal devotion
carried, that multitudes, both of the chiefs and of the common people,
were daily in the habit of denying themselves of every thing but what
was absolutely necessary to sustain life, and sending to the palace
every article of fresh food, or delicate fruit, which they could obtain
from their own gardens, or purchase from those of others. This noble
devotion on the part of his people, was discovered and made known to the
Emperor by Karee. She was the almoner of the bounty of the queen to
multitudes of the poor and the sick, in different quarters of the city.
On one of her errands of mercy, while she was administering to the
comfort of a poor friend, in the last stages of mortal disease, made
ten-fold more appalling by the absence of almost every thing that could
sustain nature in the final struggle, she overheard the conversation of
a father with his child in the adjoining room.

"Nay, my dear father, you must eat it. Your strength is almost gone, and
how can you stand among the fighting men, and defend your king and your
house, when you have eaten nothing for two whole days?"

"My precious child, I shall find something when I go out. But this
morsel is for you, for I know you cannot live till I come home, if you
do not eat this. And what will life be worth when you are gone."

"Father, dear father, I cannot eat it. It will do me more good to see
you eat it, for then I shall be sure you can live another day at least,
and then, who knows but the gods will send us help."

Karee could listen no longer. Rushing into the apartment whence these
melancholy sounds proceeded, she beheld the shadow of a once beautiful
girl leaning on the arm of the pale and wasted figure of a man,
endeavoring to draw him towards a table on which lay a single morsel of
dried fruit, which he had brought in for her, it being the only food