Yes, with me; and your friend here will bear me witness that it may not be altogether to your advantage to have a quarrel with such as I.Now, step back, young gentlemen, and let the girl tell me what she needs." When Irene stood face to face with the anchorite, and had told him quickly and in a low voice what she had done, and that her sister Klea was even now waiting for her return, Serapion laughed aloud, and then said in a low tone, but gaily, as a father teases his daughter: "She has eaten enough for two, and here she stands, on her tiptoes, reaching up to my window, as if it were not an over-fed girl that stood in her garments, but some airy sprite.

We may laugh, but Klea, poor thing, she must be hungry ?" Irene made no reply, but she stood taller on tiptoe than ever, put her face up to Serapion, nodding her pretty head at him again and again, and as she looked roguishly and yet imploringly into his eyes Serapion went on: "And so I am to give my breakfast to Klea, that is what you want; but unfortunately that breakfast is a thing of the past and beyond recall; nothing is left of it but the date-stones.

But there, on the trencher in your hand, is a nice little meal." "That is the offering to Serapis sent by old Phibis," answered the girl.
"Hm, hm--oh! of course!" muttered the old man.

"So long as it is for a god--surely he might do without it better than a poor famishing girl." Then he went on, gravely and emphatically, as a teacher who has made an incautious speech before his pupils endeavors to rectify it by another of more solemn import.
"Certainly, things given into our charge should never be touched; besides, the gods first and man afterwards.

Now if only I knew what to do.