“I am truly sorry to hear it.  Let us put some cold water on his forehead, and until the slaves come back again I will change the wet cloth every quarter of an hour.  Here is a jar and a handkerchief—­good, they might have been left on purpose.  Perhaps, too, it will wake him, and if not the people shall carry him to his own rooms.”

“Disgraceful, disgraceful!” sighed the girl.

“Not at all; the high-priest of Serapis even is sometimes unwell.  Only let me see to it.”

“It will excite him afresh if he sees you.  He is so angry with you—­so very angry.”

“Omnipotent Zeus, what harm have I done you, fat father!  The gods forgive the sins of the wise, and a man will not forgive the fault committed by a stupid lad in a moment of imprudence.”

“You mocked at him.”

“I set a clay head that was like him on the shoulders of the fat Silenus near the gate, that had lost its own head.  It was my first piece of independent work.”

“But you did it to vex my father.”

“Certainly not, Selene; I was delighted with the joke and nothing more.”

“But you knew how touchy he is.”

“And does a wild boy of fifteen ever reflect on the consequences of his audacity?  If he had but given me a thrashing his annoyance would have discharged itself like thunder and lightning, and the air would have been clear again.  But, as it was, he cut the face off the work with a knife, and deliberately trod the pieces under foot as they lay on the ground.  He gave me one single blow—­with his thumb—­which I still feel, it is true, and then he treated me and my parents with such scorn, so coldly and hardly, with such bitter contempt—­”

“He never is really violent, but wrath seems to eat him inwardly, and I have rarely seen him so angry as he was that time.”

“But if he had only settled the account with me on the spot! but my father was by, and hot words fell like rain, and my mother added her share, and from that time there has been utter hostility between our little house and you up here.  What hurt me most was that you and your sister were forbidden to come to see us and to play with me.”

“That has spoilt many pleasant hours for me, too.”

“It was nice when we used to dress up in my father’s theatrical finery and cloaks.”

“And when you made us dolls out of clay.”.

“Or when we performed the Olympian games.”

“I was always the teacher when we played at school with our little brothers and sisters.”

“Arsinoe gave you most trouble.”

“Oh! and what fun when we went fishing!”

“And when we brought home the fishes and mother gave us meal and raisins to cook them.”

“Do you remember the festival of Adonis, and how I stopped the runaway horse of that Numidian officer?”

“The horse had knocked over Arsinoe, and when we got home mother gave you an almond-cake.”