Dame Hannah sat by the bed, and carried out the physician’s instructions with exactness; he himself did not leave his patient till he was perfectly satisfied with her bed and her position.  Mary stayed with the widow helping her to wet handkerchiefs and to make bandages out of old linen.

When Selene began to breathe more calmly Hannah beckoned her assistant to come close to her and asked in a low voice.

“Can you stay here till early to-morrow, we must take it in turns to watch her, most likely for several nights—­how hot this wound on her head is!”

“Yes, I can stay, only I must tell my mother that she may not be frightened.”

“Quite right, and then you may undertake another commission for I cannot leave the poor child just now.”

“Her people will be anxious about her.”

“That is just where you must go; but no one besides us two must know who she is.  Ask for Selene’s sister and tell her what has happened; if you see her father tell him that I am taking care of his daughter, and that the physician strictly forbids her moving or being moved.  But he must not know that Selene is one of us workers, so do not say a word about the factory before him.  If you find neither Arsinoe nor her father at home, tell any one that opens the door to you that I have taken the sick child in, and did it gladly.  But about the workshop, do your hear, not a word.  One thing more, the poor girl would never have come down to the factory in spite of such pain, unless her family had been very much in need of her wages; so just give these drachmae to some one and say, as is perfectly true, that we found them about her person.”

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THE EMPEROR

By Georg Ebers

Volume 5.

CHAPTER XIX.

Plutarch was one of the richest citizens of Alexandria, and the owner of the papyrus manufactory where Selene and Arsinoe worked; and he had of his own free will offered to provide for the “suitable” entertainment of the wives and daughters of his fellow-citizens, who were, this very day, to assemble in one of the smaller theatres of the city.  Every one that knew him, knew too that “suitable” with him meant as much as to say imperial splendor.

The ship-builder’s daughter had prepared Arsinoe for grand doings, but by the time she had reached the entrance only of the theatre her expectations were exceeded, for as soon as she gave her father’s name and her own, a boy, who looked out from an arbor of flowers gave her a magnificent bunch of flowers, and another, who sat perched on a dolphin, handed her, as a ticket of admission, a finely-cut ornament of ivory mounted in gold, with a pin, by which the invited owner was intended to fix it like a brooch in her peplum; and at each entrance to the theatre, the ladies, as they came in, had a similar present made them.