working.

Suddenly the clatter ceased. Damia had sent a slave-girl down to say
that they might leave off work and rest till next day if they chose. She
had ordered that wine should be distributed to them in the great hall, as
freely as at the great festival of Dionysus.

All was silent in the Gynaeconitis. The garlands of flowers, which Gorgo
herself had helped some damsels of her acquaintance to twine for the
temple of Isis, lay in a heap-the steward had told her that the venerable
sanctuary was to be closed and surrounded by soldiers. This then put an
end to the festival; and she could have been heartily glad, for it
relieved her of the necessity of defying Constantine; still, it was
with tender melancholy that she thought of the gentle goddess in whose
sanctuary she had so often found comfort and support. She could
remember, as a tiny child, gathering the first flowers in her little
garden, and sticking them in the ground near the tank from which water
was fetched for libations in the temple; with the pocketmoney given her
by her elders, she had bought perfumes to pour on the altars of the
divinity; and often when her heart was heavy she had found relief in
prayer before the marble statue of the goddess. How splendid had the
festivals of Isis been, how gladly and rapturously had she sung in their
honor! Almost everything that had lent poetry and dignity to her
childhood had been bound up with Isis and her sanctuary--and now it was
closed and the image of the divine mother was perhaps lying in fragments
in the dirt!

Gorgo knew all the lofty ideals which lay at the foundation of the
worship of this goddess; but it was not to them that she had turned for
help, but to the image in whose mystical strength she trusted. And what