now for the first time noticing
the dish before him. "A fowl--when we are so miserably poor? A whole
fowl, and cooked with oil?" He spoke angrily, but his wife, laying her
hand on his shoulder, said soothingly:

"We shall soon earn it again. Never a sesterce was won by fretting.
Enjoy to-day's gifts and the gods will provide for to-morrow."

"Indeed?" asked Karnis in an altered key. "To be sure when a roast fowl
flies into one's mouth instead of a pigeon.... But you are right as
usual, Herse, as usual, only--here am I battening like a senator while
you--I lay a wager you have drunk nothing but milk all day and eaten
nothing but bread and radishes. I thought so? Then the chicken must
pretend to be a pheasant and you, wife, will eat this leg. The girls
are gone to bed? Why here is some wine too! Fill up your cup, boy. A
libation to the God! Glory to Dionysus!" The two men poured the libation
on the floor and drank; then the father thrust his knife into the breast
of the bird and began his meal with a will, while Orpheus, the son, went
on with his story:

"Well, the temple of Dionysus was not to be found, for Bishop Theophilus
has had it destroyed; so to what divinity could we offer our wreath
and cake? Here in Egypt there is none but the great Mother Isis. Her
sanctuary is on the shore of Lake Mareotis and mother found it at once.
There she fell into conversation with a priestess who, as soon as she
learnt that my mother belonged to a family of musicians--though Dame
Herse was cautious in announcing this fact--and hoped to find employment
in Alexandria, led her away to a young lady who was closely veiled. This
lady," Orpheus went on--he not only played the flute but took the higher
parts for a man's voice and could also strike the lyre--"desired us to
go to her later at her own house, where she would speak with us. She
drove off in a fine carriage and we, of course followed her orders; Agne
was with us too. A splendid house! I never saw anything handsomer in
Rome or Antioch. We were kindly received, and with the lady there were
another very old lady and a tall grave man, a priest I should fancy or a
philosopher, or something of that kind."

"Not some Christian trap?" asked Karnis suspiciously. "You do not know
this place, and since the edict..."

"Never fear, father! There were images of the gods in the halls
and corridors, and in the room where we were received by Gorgo, the
beautiful daughter of Porphyrius, there w