wish his father good-morning before he went down to the oasis to fetch
some new medicine from the senator.




CHAPTER VI.

Sirona was sitting at the open window of her bedroom, having her hair
arranged by a black woman that her husband had bought in Rome. She
sighed, while the slave lightly touched the shining tresses here and
there with perfumed oil which she had poured into the palm of her hand;
then she firmly grasped the long thick waving mass of golden hair and was
parting it to make a plait, when Sirona stopped her, saying, "Give me the
mirror."

For some minutes she looked with a melancholy gaze at the image in the
polished metal, then she sighed again; she picked up the little greyhound
that lay at her feet, and placing it in her lap, showed the animal its
image in the mirror.

"There, poor Iambe," she said, "if we two, inside these four walls, want
to see anything like a pleasing sight we must look at ourselves."

Then she went on, turning to the slave. "How the poor little beast
trembles! I believe it longs to be back again at Arelas, and is afraid
we shall linger too long under this burning sky. Give me my sandals."

The black woman reached her mistress two little slippers with gilt
ornaments on the slight straps, but Sirona flung her hair off her face