to lower their voices, that they and her brother were speechless.

What had happened to his modest sister during the last few days? Melissa
giving him orders which he feebly obeyed! It seemed impossible! But
there was something reassuring in her manner. She must certainly have
thought it right to act thus, and it must have been worthy of her, or she
would not have carried her charming head so high, or looked him so freely
and calmly in the face.

But how had she dared to come between him and his duty to his father and
brother?

While he followed her closely and silently through the imperial rooms,
the implicit obedience he had shown her became more and more difficult
to comprehend; and when at last they stood in the empty corridor which
divided Caesar's quarters from those of the high-priest, and Philostratus
had returned to his post at the side of his sovereign, he could hold out
no longer, and cried to her indignantly:

"So far, I have followed you like a boy; I do not myself know why. But
it is not yet too late to turn round; and I ask you, what gave you the
right to prevent my doing my best for our people?"

"Your loud talking, that threatened to wake Caesar," she replied,
seriously. "His sleeping could alone save me from watching by him the
whole night."

Alexander then felt sorry he had been so foolishly turbulent, and after
Melissa had told him in a few words what she had gone through in the last
few hours he informed her of what had brought him to visit the emperor so