“Only listen,” said the slave, to confirm his report.  “You can hear him grunting and snuffing as far as this.  I pushed a cushion under his head, for otherwise, so full as he is, the stout gentleman might come to some harm.”

Love is a plant which springs up for many who have never sown it, and grows into a spreading tree for many who have neither fostered nor tended it.  How little had Keraunus ever done to win the heart of his daughter, how much on the contrary which could not fail to overshadow and trouble her young life.  And yet Selene, whose youth—­for she was but nineteen—­ needed repose and to whom the evening with the reprieve of sleep brought more pleasure than the morning with its load of cares and labor, sat by the three-branched lamp and watched, and tormented herself more and more as it grew later and later, at her father’s long absence.  About a week before the strong man had suddenly lost consciousness; only, it is true, for a few minutes, and the physician had told her that though he appeared to be in superabundant health, the attack indicated that he must follow his prescriptions strictly and avoid all kinds of excess.  A single indiscretion, he had declared, might swiftly and suddenly cut the thread of his existence.  After her father had gone out in obedience to the architect’s invitation, Selene had brought out her youngest brothers’ and sisters’ garments, in order to mend them.  Her sister Arsinoe, who was her junior by two years, and whose fingers were as nimble as her own, might indeed have helped her, but she had gone to bed early and was sleeping by the children who could not be left untended at night.  Her female slave, who had been in her grandmother’s service, ought to have assisted her; but the old half-blind negress saw even worse by lamp-light than by daylight, and after a few stitches could do no more.  Selene sent her to bed and sat down alone to her work.

For the first hour she sewed away without looking up, considering, meanwhile, how she could best contrive to support the family till the end of the month on the few drachmae she could dispose of.  As it got later she grew wearier and wearier, but still she sat at the work, though her pretty head often sank upon her breast.  She must await her father’s return, for a potion prepared by the physician stood waiting for him, and she feared he would forget it if she did not remind him.

By the end of the second hour sleep overcame her, and she felt as if the chair she was sitting on was giving way under her, and as if it was sinking at first slowly and then quicker and quicker, into a deep abyss that opened beneath her.  Looking up for help in her dream, she could see nothing but her father’s face, which looked aside with indifference.  As her dream went on she called him and called him again, but for a long time he did not seem to hear her.  At last he looked down at her and when he perceived her he smiled, but instead of helping her he picked