“Yes,” replied Selene, looking the widow full in the face—­ a regularly-cut face, set in abundant smooth brown hair, and with the stamp of genuine and heart-felt goodness.  “Yes—­you remind me of my mother.”

“Well, I might be your mother.”

“I am nineteen years old already.”

“Already,” replied Hannah, with a smile.  “Why my life has been twice as long as yours.  I had a child, too, a boy; and he was taken from me when he was quite little.  He would be a year older than you now, my child—­ is your mother still alive?”

“No,” said Selene, with her old dry manner, that had become a habit.  “The gods have taken her from us.  She would have been, like you, not quite forty now, and she was as pretty and as kind as you are.  When she died she left seven children besides me, all little, and one of them blind.  I am the eldest, and do what I can for them, that they may not be starved.”

“God will help you in the loving task.”

“The gods!” exclaimed Selene, bitterly.  “They let them grow up, the rest I have to see to—­oh! my foot, my foot!”

“Yes, we will think of that before anything else.  Your father is alive?”

“Yes.”

“And he is not to know that you work here?”

Selene shook her head.

“He is in moderate circumstances, but of good family?”

“Yes.”

“Here, I think, is the doctor.  Well?  May I know your father’s name?  I must if I am to get you safe home.”

“I am the daughter of Keraunus, the steward of the palace, and we have rooms there, at Lochias,” Selene answered, with rapid decision, but in a low whisper, so that the physician, who just then opened the room door, might not hear her.  “No one, and least of all, my father, must know that I work here.”

The widow made a sign to her to be easy, greeted the grey-haired leech who came in with his assistant; and then, while the old man examined the injured limb, and cut the straps with a sharp pair of scissors, she bathed the girl’s face and cut head with a wet handkerchief, supported the poor child in her arms, and, when the pain seemed too much for her, kissed her pale cheeks.

Many sighs from the bottom of her heart, and many shrill little cries betrayed how intense was the pain Selene was enduring.  When at length, her delicate and graceful foot-distorted just now by the extensive swelling,—­was freed from the bands and straps, and the ankle had been felt and pressed in every direction by the leech, he exclaimed, turning to the assistant who stood ready to lend a helping hand: 

“Look here, Hippolytus, the girl came along the streets with her ankle in this state.  If any one else had told me of such a thing, I should have desired him to keep his lies to himself.  The fibula is broken at the joint, and with this injured limb the child has walked farther than I could trust myself at all—­without my litter.  By Sirius! child, if you are not crippled for life it will be a miracle.”