“What, tall Pollux! It really is tall Pollux; how glad I am!” With these words the girl on the balcony loudly clapped her hands; and as the sculptor hailed her in return, and shouted: “And you are little Arsinoe, eternal gods! What the little thing has come to!” She stood on tip-toe to seem taller, nodded at him pleasantly, and laughed out: “I have not done growing yet; but as for you, you look quite dignified with the beard on your chin, and your eagle’s nose. Selene did not tell me till to-day that you were living down there with the others.” The artist’s eyes were fixed on the girl, as if spellbound. There are poetic natures in which the imagination immediately transmutes every new thing that strikes the eyes or the intelligence, into a romance, or rapidly embodies it in verse; and Pollux, like many of his calling, could never set his eyes on a fine human form and face, without instantly associating them with his art. “A Galatea--a Galatea without an equal!” thought he, as he stood with his eyes fixed on Arsinoe’s face and figure. “Just as if she had this instant risen from the sea--that form is just as fresh, and joyous, and healthy; and her little curls wave back from her brow as if they were still floating on the water; and now as she stoops, how full and supple in every movement. It is like a daughter of Nereus following the line of the as the waves as they rise into crests and dip again into watery valleys. She is like Selene and her mother in the shape of her head and the Greek cut of her face, but the elder sister is like the statue of Prometheus before it had a soul, and Arsinoe is like the Master’s work after the celestial fire coursed through her veins.” The artist had felt and thought all this out in a few seconds, but the girl found her speechless admirer’s silence too long, and exclaimed impatiently: “You have not yet offered me any proper greeting. What are you doing down there?” “Look here,” he replied, lifting the cloth from the portrait, which was a striking likeness. Arsinoe leaned far over the parapet of the balcony, shaded her eyes with her hand and was silent for more than a minute. Then she suddenly cried out loudly and exclaiming: “Mother--it is my mother!” She flew into the room behind her. “Now she will call her father and destroy all poor Selene’s comfort,” thought Pollux, as he pushed the heavy marble bust on which his gypsum head was fixed, into its right place. “Well, let him come. We are the masters here now, and Keraunus dare not touch the Emperor’s property.” He crossed his arms and stood gazing at the bust, muttering to himself: “Patchwork--miserable patchwork. We are cobbling up a robe for the Emperor out of mere rags; we are upholsterers and not artists. If it were only for Hadrian, and not for Diotima and her children, not another finger would I stir in the place.”