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[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
THE EMPEROR, Part 2.
By Georg Ebers
Dame Hannah had watched by Selene till sunrise and indefatigably cooledboth her injured foot and the wound in her head. The old physician wasnot dissatisfied with the condition of his patient, but ordered the widowto lie down for a time and to leave the care of her for a few hours toher young friend. When Mary was alone with the sick girl and had laidthe fresh cold handkerchief in its place, Selene turned her face towardsher and said:
"Then you were at Lochias yesterday. Tell me how you found them allthere. Who guided you to our lodgings and did you see my little brotherand sisters?"
"You are not yet quite free of fever, and I do not know how much I oughtto talk to you—but I would with all my heart."
The words were spoken kindly and there was a deep loving light in theeyes of the deformed girl as she said them. Selene excited not merelyher sympathy and pity, but her admiration too, for she was so beautiful,so totally different from herself, and in every little service sherendered her, she felt like some despised beggar whom a prince might havepermitted to wait upon him. Her hump had never seemed to her so bent,nor her brown skin so ugly at any other time as it did to-day, when sideby side with this symmetrical and delicate girlish form, rounded to suchtender contours.
But Mary felt not the smallest movement of envy. She only felt happy tohelp Selene, to serve her, to be allowed to gaze at her although she wasa heathen. During the night too, she had prayed fervently that the Lordmight graciously draw to himself this lovely, gentle creature, that Hemight permit her to recover, and fill her soul with the same love for theSaviour that gave joy to her own. More than once she had longed to kissher, but she dared not, for it seemed to her as though the sick girl weremade of finer stuff than she herself.
Selene felt tired, very tired, and as the pain diminished, a comfortablesense stole over her of peace and respite in the silent and lovinghomeliness of her surroundings; a feeling that was new and very soothing,though it was interrupted, now and again, by her anxiety for those athome. Dame Hannah's presence did her good, for she fancied sherecognized in her voice something that had been peculiar to her mother's,when she had played with her and pressed her with special affection toher heart.
In the papyrus factory, at the gumming-table, the sight of the littlehunchback had disgusted Selene, but here she observed what good eyes shehad, and how kind a voice, and the care with which Mary lifted thecompress from her foot—as softly, as if in her own hands she felt thepain that Selene was suffering—and then laid another on the brokenankle, aroused her gratitude. Her sister Arsinoe was a vain and thoroughAlexandrian girl, and she had nicknamed the poor thing after the ugliestof the Hellenes who had besieged Troy. "Dame Thersites," and Seleneherself had often repeated it. Now she forgot the insulting namealtogether, and met the objections of her nurse by saying:
"The fever cannot be much now; if you tell me something I shall not thinkso constantly of this atrocious pain. I am longing to be at home. Didyou see the children?"
"No, Selene. I went