Deborah threw off her coarse garment, and before the mirror of polished brass--in which many generations of women had been made conscious of the beauty for which their family was famous--she arranged her hair as decorously as its brief length permitted, supplementing its lost beauty with a band of pearls which she discovered in the great carved wooden chest. Her arms were now as sun-stained as those of a Bedouin maiden from the tribes beyond Jordan, and made goodly contrast with the silver bracelets which once scarcely rivalled the whiteness of her skin. She donned an embroidered bodice and outer robe of white linen, and put on the sandals with the golden-threaded strings binding the ankles, such as she had often worn. "Once more I am the daughter of Elkiah." A momentary flush of pride answered the reflection in the mirror. She pushed it from her, and sat with folded hands upon the couch. "A hypocrite! What better am I than that brazen mistress of Apollonius? Oh, God, must I do this? A spy in the house of my father? Lord, lead me. Save me from wrong-doing. Yet is it not Thy will?" "What is it, sister?" asked Caleb, who was now awakened by Deborah's soliloquy. He stretched out his hands to her, but shrank back as he felt the strange texture of her robe. "We are home again, my dear. Come, you must wear your pretty clothes." While dressing Caleb neither of them spoke, for their attention was drawn to loud voices which sounded from the adjacent chamber. "The Lord be with thee, Glaucon!" "And with thee, Menelaos!" "Ha! ha! you haven't forgotten your old-time piety." "If I had, the presence of the High Priest would revive the memory. I take it that your office has more agreeable functions, now that the King will not allow the priests to smell so much of blood and offal as formerly. A journey to Antioch, a chariot in the processions, and a symposium in the King's new banqueting-hall--though the wine has too much mastic in it--must be preferable to playing chief butcher at the Temple. Is it not so, my lord?" "Hush, Glaucon! Your words have too much truth in them to be agreeable," replied Menelaos. "But, by Jove!--it is convenient to have an oath one can use without blasphemy--by Jove! I would rather be here hobnobbing with an old comrade than tripping up on my official skirts in Antioch." The Priest threw himself upon the wide divan, while an attendant arranged behind him a pile of cushions. "Wine, Ajax!" cried Glaucon. "I am sorry we must take it no cooler than the cellar, for these rebels have let no snow be brought from Hermon since they sent Apollonius across the Styx."