"What is the use," she asked, "of cheating the children with silly tales?
Their father is gone, quite gone, but we will never, never forget him."
"Are there any angels with red wings?" asked the youngest little girl.
"Oh! I want to be an angel!" cried Helios, clapping his hands. "And can the angels see?"
"Yes, dear little man," replied Mastor, "and their eyes are wonderfully bright, and all they look upon is beautiful."
"Tell them no more Christian nonsense," begged Arsinoe. "Ah! children, when we shall have burned our father's body there will be nothing left of him but a few grey ashes."
But the slave took the little blind boy on his knees and whispered to him:
"Only believe what I tell you—you will see him again in Heaven."
Then he set him down again, gave Arsinoe a little bag of gold pieces in Caesar's name, and begged her—for so his master desired—to find a new abode and, after the deceased was burned on the morrow, to quit Lochias with the children. When Mastor was gone Arsinoe opened the chest, in which lay her father's papyri and the money that Plutarch had paid for the ivory cup, put in the heavy purse sent by the Emperor, comforting herself while her tears flowed, with the reflection that she and the children were provided at any rate against immediate want.
But where was she to go with the little ones? Where could she hope to find a refuge at once? What was to become of them when all they now possessed was spent. The gods be thanked! she was not forlorn; she still had friends. She could find protection and love with Pollux and look to dame Doris for motherly counsel.
She quickly dried her eyes and changed the remains of her splendor for the dark dress in which she was accustomed to work at the papyrus factory; then, as soon as she had taken the pearls out of her hair, she went down to the little gate-house.