The reproachful complaint is heard by the messenger outside the door, for the old woman who shoved in the trencher over the threshold answers quickly but not crossly.

“Nothing more to-day, Irene.”

“It is disgraceful,” cries the girl, her eyes filling with tears, “every day the loaf grows smaller, and if we were sparrows we should not have enough to satisfy us.  You know what is due to us and I will never cease to complain and petition.  Serapion shall draw up a fresh address for us, and when the king knows how shamefully we are treated—­”

“Aye! when he knows,” interrupted the old woman.  But the cry of the poor is tossed about by many winds before it reaches the king’s ear.  I might find a shorter way than that for you and your sister if fasting comes so much amiss to you.  Girls with faces like hers and yours, my little Irene, need never come to want.”

“And pray what is my face like?” asked the girl, and her pretty features once more seemed to catch a gleam of sunshine.

“Why, so handsome that you may always venture to show it beside your sister’s; and yesterday, in the procession, the great Roman sitting by the queen looked as often at her as at Cleopatra herself.  If you had been there too he would not have had a glance for the queen, for you are a pretty thing, as I can tell you.  And there are many girls would sooner hear those words then have a whole loaf—­besides you have a mirror I suppose, look in that next time you are hungry.”

The old woman’s shuffling steps retreated again and the girl snatched up the golden jar, opened the door a little way to let in the daylight and looked at herself in the bright surface; but the curve of the costly vase showed her features all distorted, and she gaily breathed on the hideous travestie that met her eyes, so that it was all blurred out by the moisture.  Then she smilingly put down the jar, and opening the chest took from it a small metal mirror into which she looked again and yet again, arranging her shining hair first in one way and then in another; and she only laid it down when she remembered a certain bunch of violets which had attracted her attention when she first woke, and which must have been placed in their saucer of water by her sister some time the day before.  Without pausing to consider she took up the softly scented blossoms, dried their green stems on her dress, took up the mirror again and stuck the flowers in her hair.

How bright her eyes were now, and how contentedly she put out her hand for the loaf.  And how fair were the visions that rose before her young fancy as she broke off one piece after another and hastily eat them after slightly moistening them with the fresh oil.  Once, at the festival of the New Year, she had had a glimpse into the king’s tent, and there she had seen men and women feasting as they reclined on purple cushions.  Now she dreamed of tables covered with costly vessels, was served in fancy by boys crowned with flowers, heard the music of flutes and harps and—­for she was no more than a child and had such a vigorous young appetite—­pictured herself as selecting the daintiest and sweetest morsels out of dishes of solid gold and eating till she was satisfied, aye so perfectly satisfied that the very last mouthful of bread and the very last drop of oil had disappeared.