performance perhaps I might show myself in my dress to Selene, and then
she would forgive my taking part in the show. It is really a pleasure to
look so nice!"

The children all stood round her while she was being dressed, and shouted
with admiration each time some new detail of the princess's attire was
added. Helios begged to be allowed to feel her dress, and after
satisfying herself that his little hands were clean she stroked them over
the glistening white silk.

She had now advanced so far that her father and the tailor could be
called in. She felt remarkably content and happy. Drawn up to her
tallest, like a real king's daughter, and yet with a heart beating as
anxiously as that of any girl would who is on the point of displaying her
beauty--hitherto protected and hidden in her parents' home--to the
thousand eyes of the gaping multitude, she went towards the sitting-room;
but she drew back her hand she had put forth to raise the latch, for she
heard the voices of several men who must just now have joined her father.

"Wait a little while, there are visitors," she cried to the seamstress
who had followed her, and she put her ear to the door to listen. At
first she could not make out anything that was going on, but the end of
the strange conversation that was being carried on within was so
hideously intelligible that she could never forget it so long as she
lived.

Her father had ordered two new dresses for her, beating down the price
with the promise of prompt payment, when Mastor came into the steward's
room and informed Keraunus that his master and Gabinius, the curiosity-
dealer from Nicaea, wished to speak with him.