“That was delightful—­lovely!” cried Doris with sparkling eyes.  “But thirty years since it was all different, very different.  I have told you before now how I went with our maid-servant into the Canopic way to the house of my aunt Archidike to look on at the great procession.  I had not far to go for we lived near the Theatre, my father was stage-manager and yours was one of the chief singers in the chorus.  We hurried along, but all sorts of people stopped us, and drunken men wanted to joke with me.”

“Ah, you were as sweet as a rose-bud then,” her son interrupted.

“As a rose-bud, yes, but not like your lovely rose,” said the old woman.  “At any rate I looked nice enough for the men in disguise—­fauns and satyrs and were the cynic hypocrites in their ragged cloaks, to think it worth while to look at me and to take a rap on the knuckles when they tried to put an arm round me or to steal a kiss, I did not care for the handsomest of them, for Euphorion had done for me with his fiery glances—­not with words for I was very strictly kept and he had never been able to get a chance to speak to me.  At the corner of the Canopic way and the Market street we could get no farther, for the crowd had blocked the way and were howling and storming as they stared at a party of Klodones and other Maenads, who in their sacred fury were tearing a goat to pieces with their teeth.  I shuddered at the spectacle, but I must need stare with the rest and shout and halloo as they did.  My maid, who I held on to tightly, was seized with the frenzy and dragged me into the middle of the circle close up to the bleeding sacrifice.  Two of the possessed women sprang upon us, and I felt one clasping me tightly and trying to throw me down.  It was a horrible moment but I defended myself bravely and had succeeded in keeping on my feet when your father sprang forward, set me free and led me away.  What happened after I could not tell you now; it was one of those wild happy dreams in which you must hold your heart with both hands for fear it should crack with joy, or fly out and away up to the sky and in the very eye of the sun.  Late in the evening I got home and a week after I was Euphorion’s wife.”

“We have exactly followed your example,” said Pollux, “and if Arsinoe grows to be like my dear old woman I shall be quite satisfied.”

“Happy and contented,” replied Doris.  “Keep you health, snap your fingers at care and sorrow, do your duty on work-days and drink till you are jolly in honor of the god on holidays, and then all will be well.  Those who do all they are able and enjoy as much as they can get, make good use of their lives and need feel no remorse in their last hours.  What is past is done for, and when Atropos cuts our thread some one else will stand in our place and joys will begin all over again.  May the gods bless you!”

“You are right,” said Pollux embracing his mother, and two together can turn the work out of hand more lightly and enjoy the pleasures of existence better than each alone—­can they not?”