what each day brings, because I can not do otherwise. My heart is empty,
and if I ever feel anything keenly, it is dread. I have long since
ceased to expect any thing good of the future."

"Girl!" exclaimed Pollux. "Why, what has been happening to you? I do
not understand half of what you are saying. How came you in the papyrus
factory?"

"Do not betray me," begged Selene. "If my father were to hear of it."

"He is asleep, and what you confide to me no one will ever hear of
again."

"Why should I conceal it? I go every day with Arsinoe for two hours to
the manufactory, and we work there to earn a little money."

"Behind your father's back?"

"Yes, he would rather that we should starve than allow it. Every day I
feel the same loathing for the deceit; but we could not get on without
it, for Arsinoe thinks of nothing but herself, plays draughts with my
father, curls his hair, plays with the children as if they were dolls,
but it is my part to take care of them."

"And you, you say, have no share of love. Happily no one believes you,
and I least of all. Only lately my mother was telling me about you, and
I thought you were a girl who might turn out just such a wife as a woman
ought to be."

"And now?"