extinguished all her joy.

"The affection which breathed in every word of the centurion's wife,"
Alexander said, "helped me in my work. I could be satisfied with the
result.

"The picture is so successful that I finished that for Seleukus in all
confidence, and for the sarcophagus I will copy it as well or as ill as
time will allow. It will hardly be seen in the half-dark tomb, and how
few will ever go to see it! None but a Seleukus can afford to employ so
costly a brush as your brother's is--thank the Muses! But the second
portrait is quite another thing, for that may chance to be hung next a
picture by Apelles; and it must restore to the parents so much of their
lost child as it lies in my power to give them. So, on my way, I made up
my mind to begin the copy at once by lamp-light, for it must be ready by
to-morrow night at latest.

"I hurried to my work-room, and my slave placed the picture on an easel,
while I welcomed my brother Philip who had come to see me, and who had
lighted a lamp, and of course had brought a book. He was so absorbed in
it that he did not observe that I had come in till I addressed him. Then
I told him whence I came and what had happened, and he thought it all
very strange and interesting.

"He was as usual rather hurried and hesitating, not quite clear, but
understanding it all. Then he began telling me something about a
philosopher who has just come to the front, a porter by trade, from whom
he had heard sundry wonders, and it was not till Syrus brought me in a
supper of oysters--for I could still eat nothing more solid--that he
asked to see the portrait.