“You speak of the haughtiness and the stern repellent demeanor of our Hebe’s sister.  I have seen her too, and I think that her image might be set up in the Stoa as a happy impersonation of the severest virtue:  and yet children generally resemble their parents, and her father was the veriest peculator and the most cunning rascal that ever came in my way, and was sent off to the gold-mines for very sufficient reasons.  And for the sake of the daughter of a convicted criminal you have been driven through the dust and the scorching heat, and have had to submit to her scorn and contemptuous airs, while I am threatened with grave peril on her account, for you know that Cleopatra’s latest whim is to do honor to the Roman, Publius Scipio; he, on the other hand, is running after our Hebe, and, having promised her that he will obtain an unqualified pardon for her father, he will do his utmost to throw the odium of his robbery upon me.

“The queen is to give him audience this very day, and you cannot know how many enemies a man makes who, like me, has for many years been one of the leading men of a great state.  The king acknowledges, and with gratitude, all that I have done for him and for his mother; but if, at the moment when Publius Scipio accuses me, he is more in favor with her than ever, I am a lost man.

“You are always with the queen; do you tell her who these girls are, and what motives the Roman has for loading me with their father’s crimes; and some opportunity must offer for doing you and your belongings some friendly office or another.”

“What a shameless crew!” exclaimed Zoe.  “Depend upon it I will not be silent, for I always do what is just.  I cannot bear seeing others suffering an injustice, and least of all that a man of your merit and distinction should be wounded in his honor, because a haughty foreigner takes a fancy to a pretty little face and a conceited doll of a girl.”

Zoe was in the right when she found the air stifling in the gate-keeper’s house, for poor Irene, unaccustomed to such an atmosphere, could no more endure it than the pretentious maid of honor.  It cost even Klea an effort to remain in the wretched room, which served as the dwelling-place of the whole family; where the cooking was carried on at a smoky hearth, while, at night, it also sheltered a goat and a few fowls; but she had endured even severer trials than this for the sake of what she deemed right, and she was so fond of little Philo—­her anxious care in arousing by degrees his slumbering intelligence had brought her so much soothing satisfaction, and the child’s innocent gratitude had been so tender a reward—­that she wholly forgot the repulsive surroundings as soon as she felt that her presence and care were indispensable to the suffering little one.