a chair before loosening her hair. Alexander caught her just in time to
prevent her falling.

With her healthy nature, Melissa soon regained consciousness, and during
the first few moments her distress over the spoiled garment threw every
other thought into the background. Shaking her head gravely over the
black-edged holes which the coals had burned in the peplos and the under-
robes, Euryale secretly rejoiced at the accident. She remembered that
when her heart was torn and bleeding, after the death of her only child,
her thoughts were taken off herself by the necessary duty of providing
mourning garments for herself, her husband, and the slaves. This trivial
task had at least helped her to forget for a few hours the bitterness of
her grief.

Only anxious to lighten in some sort the fate of the sweet young creature
whom she had learned to love, she made much of the difficulty of
procuring a fresh dress for Melissa, though she was perfectly aware that
her sister-in-law possessed many such. Alexander was commissioned to
take one of the emperor's chariots--which always stood ready for the use
of the courtiers between the Serapeum and the springs on the east--and to
hasten to the lady Berenike. The lady begged that he, as an artist,
would assist in choosing the robe; and the less conspicuous and costly it
was the better.

To this Melissa heartily agreed, and, after Alexander had gone, Euryale
bore off her pale young charge to the eating-room, where she forced her
to take some old wine and a little food, which she would not touch
before. As the attendant filled the wine-cup, the high-priest himself
joined them, greeted Melissa briefly and with measured courtesy, and
begged his wife to follow him for a moment into the tablinum.