hand, took his soothsaying quite calmly,
and only desired to be carried up to her observatory that she might
watch the risings of the stars.

Gorgo remained alone below. From the adjoining workrooms came the
monotonous rattle of the loom at which, as usual, a number of slaves
were working.

Suddenly the clatter ceased. Damia had sent a slave-girl down to say
that they might leave off work and rest till next day if they chose. She
had ordered that wine should be distributed to them in the great hall,
as freely as at the great festival of Dionysus.

All was silent in the Gynaeconitis. The garlands of flowers, which Gorgo
herself had helped some damsels of her acquaintance to twine for
the temple of Isis, lay in a heap-the steward had told her that the
venerable sanctuary was to be closed and surrounded by soldiers. This
then put an end to the festival; and she could have been heartily glad,
for it relieved her of the necessity of defying Constantine; still, it
was with tender melancholy that she thought of the gentle goddess in
whose sanctuary she had so often found comfort and support. She could
remember, as a tiny child, gathering the first flowers in her little
garden, and sticking them in the ground near the tank from which water
was fetched for libations in the temple; with the pocketmoney given
her by her elders, she had bought perfumes to pour on the altars of the
divinity; and often when her heart was heavy she had found relief in
prayer before the marble statue of the goddess. How splendid had the
festivals of Isis been, how gladly and rapturously had she sung in
their honor! Almost everything that had lent poetry and dignity to her
childhood had been bound up with Isis and her sanctuary--and now it was
closed and the image of the divine mother was perhaps lying in fragments
in the dirt!

Gorgo knew all the lofty ideals which lay at the foundation of the
worship of this goddess; but it was not to them that she had turned for
help, but to the image in whose mystical strength she trusted. And
what had already been done to Isis and her temple might soon be done to
Serapis and to his house.

She could not bear the thought, for she had been accustomed to regard
the Serapeum as the very heart of the universe--the centre and fulcrum
on which the balance of the earth depended; to her, Serapis himself was
inseparable from his temple and its atmosphere of magical and mystical
power. Every prophecy, every Sibylline te