of her dress, and assumed the dignified and reverent demeanor which
became a young girl of rank and position when approaching the altars
of the divinity. But as she reached the top a loud medley of noises and
voices met her ear-flutes, drums?--The sacred dance, she supposed, must
be going on.

She came out into a room on one side of the hypostyle; her companion
opened a high door, plated with gilt bronze and silver, and Gorgo
followed him, walking gravely with her head held high and her eyes fixed
on the ground, into the magnificent hall where the sacred image sat
enthroned in veiled majesty. They crossed the colonnade at the side of
the hypostyle and went down two steps into the vast nave of the temple.

The wild tumult that she had heard on first opening the door had
surprised and puzzled her; but now, as she timidly looked up and around
her, she felt a shock of horror and revulsion such as might come over a
man who, walking by night and believing that he is treading on flowers,
suddenly finds that the slimy slope of a bottomless bog is leading him
to perdition. She tottered and clutched at a statue, gazing about
her, listening to the uproar, and wondering whether she were awake or
dreaming.

She tried not to see and hear what was going on there; it was revolting,
loathsome, horrible; but it was too manifest to be overlooked or
ignored; its vulgarity and horror forced it on her attention. For some
time she stood spell-bound, paralyzed; but then she covered her
face with her hands; maidenly shame, bitter disillusion, and pious
indignation at the gross desecration of all that she deemed most sacred
and inviolable surged up in her stricken soul, and she burst into tears,
weeping as she had never wept in all her life before. Sobbing bitterly,
she wrapped her face in her veil, as though to protect herself from
storm and chill.

No one heeded her; her companion had left her to seek her father. She
could only await his return, and she looked round for a hiding place.
Then she observed a woman in mourning garb sitting huddled at the
foot of the statue of justice; she recognized her as the widow of
Asclepiodorus and breathed more freely as she went up to her and said,
between her sobs "Let me sit by you; we can mourn together."

"Yes, yes, come," said the other; and without enquiring what Gorgo's
trouble might be, moved only by the mysterious charm of finding another
in like sorrow with herself, she drew the girl to her a