How often do we spoil our best chances by following an urgent instinct to arrive at certainty as early as possible, and by not being strong enough to postpone opening our business till a favorable moment offers.  Uncertainty in the present often seems less endurable than adverse fate in the future.

Doris stepped out of the side door.  Mastor, who knew his master well, and whose friendly impulse was to spare the old woman any humiliation, made eager signs to warn her to withdraw and not to disturb Hadrian at that moment; but she was so wholly possessed by her anxiety and wishes that she did not observe them.  As the Emperor turned to leave the room she gathered courage, stood in the doorway through which he must pass, and tried to fall on her knees before him.  This was a difficult effort to her old joints and Doris was forced to clutch at the door-post in order not to lose her balance.

Hadrian at once recognized the suppliant, but to-day he found no kind word for her, and the glance he cast down at her was anything rather than gracious.  How had he ever been able to find amusement even in this woeful old body?  Alas! poor Doris was quite a different creature in her little house, among her flowers, dogs and birds to what she seemed here in the spacious hall of a magnificent palace.  This wide and gorgeous frame but ill-suited so modest a figure.  Thousands of good people who in the midst of their everyday surroundings command our esteem and attract our regard give rise to very different feelings when they are taken out of the circle to which they belong.

Doris had never worn so unpleasing an aspect to Hadrian as at this instant, in this decisive moment of her life.  She had followed the Empress straight from the kitchen-hearth just as she was after passing a sleepless night and full of her many anxieties, she had scarcely set her grey hair in order, and her kind bright eyes, usually the best feature of her face, were red with many tears.  The neat brisk little mother looked to-day anything rather than smart and bright; in the Emperor’s eyes she was in no way distinguished from any other old woman, and he regarded all old women as of evil omen, if he met them as he went out of any place he was in.

“Oh, Caesar, Great Caesar!” cried Doris throwing up her hands which still bore many traces of her labors over the hearth.  “My son, my unfortunate Pollux!”

“Out of my way!” said Hadrian sternly.

“He is an artist, a good artist, who already excels many a master, and if the gods—­”

“Out of the way, I told you.  I do not want to hear anything about the insolent fellow,” said Hadrian angrily.

“But Great Caesar, he is my son, and a mother, as you know—­”

“Mastor,” interrupted the monarch, “carry away this old woman and make way for me.”

“Oh! my lord, my lord!” wailed the agonized woman while the slave pulled her up, not without difficulty.  “Oh! my lord, how can you find it in your heart to be so cruel?  And am I no longer old Doris whom you have even joked with, and whose food you have eaten?”