The two slave-girls had stood at a respectful distance throughout the conversation, their hands crossed submissively and their eyes bent on the floor, for Rustan's wife had already taught them manners in order to improve their price. But she was no sooner gone than they looked at each other, and their lips began to twitch nervously; in another moment they were both seized with a convulsion of silent laughter. They shook from head to foot, they held their sides, they bent and swayed, and twisted their hands together, but not a sound escaped their lips. Beyond this, they could not control their mirth, and while they laughed they looked anxiously at Zoë. She herself could not help smiling when she thought of the negress's enormous self-satisfaction, but presently she shook her head at the girls and laid her finger on her lips. Their amusement subsided quickly, for though she seemed kind, they knew what they had to expect if one word from her should expose them to the negress's displeasure. Zoë was very tired, now that the great sacrifice was made, and she let the slave-girls help her as much as they would. They even made her eat something and drink a little water. Now and then, when they looked up at her, she patted them on the shoulder and smiled faintly, but her thoughts were far away in the ruined house in the beggars' quarter. When the girls had helped her in the bath and had dried her feet that had been stained with mud and blue with the cold, they chafed them with their hands and kissed them. 'They are like two little white mice!' said Yulia, laughing softly. 'No, they are like young doves!' said Lucilla. And they each slipped one of her feet into a slipper of deerskin; and then they clothed her for the night, in fine dry linen and a small green silk jacket. They were skilful with their hands though they were still so young, and she let them do what they thought she needed, and lay down at last, to be covered and tucked in as warmly and comfortably as when Kyría Agatha used to put her to bed, before the boys had been born and had taken her place. In a few minutes the little maids had put out the lamp, leaving only the small light in the bath; then they noiselessly devoured all the sweetmeats left on the table, after which they curled themselves upon the carpet under their blankets and were asleep in a moment, like young animals. For a few moments Zoë still tried to think; tired though she was, she hated herself for being able to rest in such comfort while Kyría Agatha was perhaps awake under her pile of rags, and Nectaria was hugging the straw to keep a little warmth in her old body. But then she thought of the morrow, and of all that Nectaria would do with the gold for the sick woman and the little boys, and in this soothing reflexion she was borne softly away out of this world of slavery, through the ivory gates to the infinite gardens of dreamland.