The Sisters | Page 6

now--"
Klea, thus addressed, glanced at the empty platter and interrupted her
sister with a low-toned exclamation. "Oh! I was so hungry."
The words expressed no reproof, only utter exhaustion, and as the
young criminal looked at her sister and saw her sitting there, tired and
worn out but submitting to the injury that had been done her without a
word of complaint, her heart, easily touched, was filled with
compunction and regret. She burst into tears and threw herself on the
ground before her, clasping her knees and crying, in a voice broken
with sobs:
"Oh Klea! poor, dear Klea, what have I done! but indeed I did not mean
any harm. I don't know how it happened. Whatever I feel prompted to
do I do, I can't help doing it, and it is not till it is done that I begin to

know whether it was right or wrong. You sat up and worried yourself
for me, and this is how I repay you--I am a bad girl! But you shall not
go hungry--no, you shall not."
"Never mind; never mind," said the elder, and she stroked her sister's
brown hair with a loving hand.
But as she did so she came upon the violets fastened among the shining
tresses. Her lips quivered and her weary expression changed as she
touched the flowers and glanced at the empty saucer in which she had
carefully placed them the clay before. Irene at once perceived the
change in her sister's face, and thinking only that she was surprised at
her pretty adornment, she said gaily: "Do you think the flowers
becoming to me?"
Klea's hand was already extended to take the violets out of the brown
plaits, for her sister was still kneeling before her, but at this question
her arm dropped, and she said more positively and distinctly than she
had yet spoken and in a voice, whose sonorous but musical tones were
almost masculine and certainly remarkable in a girl:
"The bunch of flowers belongs to me; but keep it till it is faded, by
mid-day, and then return it to me."
"It belongs to you?" repeated the younger girl, raising her eyes in
surprise to her sister, for to this hour what had been Klea's had been
hers also. "But I always used to take the flowers you brought home;
what is there special in these?"
"They are only violets like any other violets," replied Klea coloring
deeply. "But the queen has worn them."
"The queen!" cried her sister springing to her feet and clasping her
hands in astonishment. "She gave you the flowers? And you never told
me till now? To be sure when you came home from the procession
yesterday you only asked me how my foot was and whether my clothes
were whole and then not another mortal word did you utter. Did
Cleopatra herself give you this bunch?"

"How should she?" retorted Klea. "One of her escort threw them to me;
but drop the subject pray! Give me the water, please, my mouth is
parched and I can hardly speak for thirst."
The bright color dyed her cheeks again as she spoke, but Irene did not
observe it, for--delighted to make up for her evil doings by performing
some little service--she ran to fetch the water-jar; while Klea filled and
emptied her wooden bowl she said, gracefully lifting a small foot, to
show to her sister:
"Look, the cut is almost healed and I can wear my sandal again. Now I
shall tie it on and go and ask Serapion for some bread for you and
perhaps he will give us a few dates. Please loosen the straps for me a
little, here, round the ankle, my skin is so thin and tender that a little
thing hurts me which you would hardly feel. At mid-day I will go with
you and help fill the jars for the altar, and later in the day I can
accompany you in the procession which was postponed from yesterday.
If only the queen and the great foreigner should come again to look on
at it! That would be splendid! Now, I am going, and before you have
drunk the last bowl of water you shall have some bread, for I will coax
the old man so prettily that he can't say 'no.'"
Irene opened the door, and as the broad sunlight fell in it lighted up
tints of gold in her chestnut hair, and her sister looking after her could
almost fancy that the sunbeams had got entangled with the waving
glory round her head. The bunch of violets was the last thing she took
note of as Irene went out into the open air; then she was alone and she
shook her head gently as she said