Here she ceased, and gazed into the faces of the statues, but they would
not look so friendly as before. It was, no doubt, the smallness of her
offering that had offended them. She anxiously drew out her little
money-bag and counted the contents. But when, after waking the priest,
she had asked how much a goat might cost for sacrifice, her countenance
cleared, for her savings were enough to pay for it and for a young cock
as well. All she had she left with the old man, to the last sesterce;
but she could only wait to see the cock sacrificed, for she felt she must
go home.

As soon as the blood of the bird had besprinkled the altar, and she had
told the divinities that a goat was also to be killed, she fancied that
they looked at her more kindly; and she was turning to the door, as light
and gay as if she had happily done some difficult task, when the curtain
screening off the library of archives was lifted, and a man came out
calling her by name. She turned round; but as soon as she saw that he
was a Roman, and, as his white toga told her, of the upper class, she
took fright. She hastily exclaimed that she was in a hurry, and flew
down the steps, through the garden, and into the road. Once there, she
reproached herself for foolish shyness of a stranger who was scarcely
younger than her own father; but by the time she had gone a few steps she
had forgotten the incident, and was rehearsing in her mind all she had to
tell Heron. She soon saw the tops of the palms and sycamores in their
own garden, her faithful old dog Melas barked with delight, and the
happiness which the meeting with the stranger had for a moment
interrupted revived with unchecked glow.

She was weary, and where could she rest so well as at home? She had
escaped many perils, and where could she feel so safe as under her
father's roof? Glad as she was at the prospect of her new and handsome