were I a man she seemed such a one as I should love, who, like all my people, have ever worshipped beauty. Yet, what did I say, that she put me in mind of a nymph of Greece. Nay, that was not so. It was of a goddess of Old Egypt that she put me in mind, for on her face was the dreaming smile which I have seen on that of a statue of mother Isis whom the Egyptians worshipped. Moreover, she wore just such a head-dress as I have noted upon those statues.'
"Now the lady Martina answered: 'Surely, you must have dreamed, Mistress. The only Egyptian woman in the palace is the daughter of the old Coptic noble, Magas, who is in Olaf's charge, and though I am told that she is not so ugly as I heard at first, Olaf has never said to me that she was like a goddess. What you saw was doubtless some image of Fortune conjured up by your mind. This I take to be the best of omens, who in these doubtful days grow superstitious.'
"'Would Olaf tell one woman that another was like a goddess, Martina, even though she to whom he spoke was his god-mother and a dozen years younger than himself? Come,' she added, 'and let us see if we can find this Egyptian.'
"Then," Heliodore went on, "not knowing what to do, I stood still there against the rockwork and the flowers till presently, round the bushes, appeared the splendid lady and Martina."
Now when I, Olaf, heard all this, I groaned and said:
"Oh! Heliodore, it was the Augusta herself."
"Yes, it was the Augusta, as I learned presently. Well, they came, and I curtsied to them."
