have held on to every slow passing vehicle, to every beast of burden that
overtook her--but man and beast mercilessly went on their way, without
paying any heed to her. She got many a push from those who were hurrying
by and who scarcely turned round to look at her, when from time to time
she stopped to sink for a moment on to the nearest door-step, or some low
cornice or bale of goods; to dry her eyes, or press her hand to her foot,
which was now swollen to a great size, hoping, as she did so, to be able
to forget, under the sense of a new form of pain, the other unceasing and
unendurable torment, at least for a few minutes.

The street boys who had run after her, and laughed at her, ceased
pursuing her when they found that she constantly stopped to rest. A
woman with a child in her arms once asked her, as she stopped to rest a
minute on a threshold, whether she wanted anything, but walked on when
Selene shook her head and made no other answer.

Once she thought she must give up altogether, when suddenly the street
was filled with jeering boys and inquisitive men and women--for Verus,
the superb Verus, came by in his chariot, and what a chariot! The
Alexandrian populace were accustomed to see much that was strange in the
busy streets of their crowded city; but this vehicle attracted every eye,
and excited astonishment, admiration and mirth, wherever it appeared, and
not unfrequently the bitterest ridicule. The handsome Roman stood in the
middle of his gilt chariot, and himself drove the four white horses,
harnessed abreast; on his head he wore a wreath, and across his breast,
from one shoulder, a garland of roses. On the foot-board of the quadriga
sat two children, dressed as Cupids; their little legs dangled in the
air, and they each held, attached by a long gilt wire, a white dove which
fluttered in front of Verus.