"I thank you and will be on my guard." "Aye do so--I mean it honestly." The Bithynian held out his hand to the artist with an expression of warm regard on his handsome features and with an indescribably graceful gesture. Pollux took it heartily, but dame Doris, whose old eyes had been fixed as if spellbound on Antinous, seized her son's arm and quite excited by the sight of his beauty cried out: "Oh! what a splendid creature! moulded by the gods! sacred to the gods! Pollux, boy! you might almost think one of the immortals had come down to earth." "Look at my old woman!" exclaimed Pollux laughing, "but in truth friend, she has good reasons for her ecstasies, I could follow her example." "Hold him fast, hold him fast!" cried Doris. "If he only will let you take his likeness you can show the world a thing worth seeing." "Will you?" interrupted Pollux turning to Hadrian's favorite. "I have never yet been able to keep still for any artist," said Antinous. "But I will do any thing you wish to please you. It only vexes me that you too should join in the chorus with the rest of the world. Farewell for the present, I must go back to my master." As soon as the youth had left the house Doris exclaimed: "Whether a work of art is good for any thing or not I can only guess at, but as to what is beautiful that I know as well as any other woman in Alexandria. If that boy will stand as your model you will produce something that will delight men and turn the heads of the women, and you will be sought after even in a workshop of your own. Eternal gods! such beauty as that is sublime. Why are there no means of preserving such a face and such a form from old age and wrinkles?" "I know the means, mother," said Pollux, as he went to the door. "It is called Art: to her it is given to bestow eternal youth on this mortal Adonis." The old woman glanced at her son with pardonable pride, and confirmed his words by an assenting nod. While she fed her birds, with many coaxing words, and made one which was a special favorite pick crumbs from her lips, the young sculptor was hurrying through the streets with long steps. He was greeted as he went with many a cross word, and many exclamations rose from the crowd he left behind him, for he pushed his way by the weight of his tall person and his powerful arms, and saw and heard, as he went, little enough of what was going around him. He thought of Arsinoe, and between whiles of Antinous and of the attitude in which he best might represent him--whether as hero or god.