Your father and brother are dearer to you than your sister; she is more important to me.

If only I could go away myself--away from here, from the desolate house, and take her with me!" And she raised her arm, as if she would throw a stone into the distance.
She impetuously embraced the young girl, took leave of her sister-in-law, and left the room with Alexander.
Directly Euryale was alone with Melissa, she comforted the girl in her kind, composed manner; for the unhappy matron's gloomy presentiments had filled Melissa with fresh anxieties.
And what had she not gone through during the day! Soon after her perilous interview with Caracalla, Timotheus, with the chief of the astrologers from the Serapeum, and the emperor's astronomer, had come to her, to ask her on what day and at what hour she was born.

They also inquired concerning the birthdays of her parents, and other events of her life.

Timotheus had informed her that the emperor had ordered them to cast her nativity.
Soon after dinner she had gone, accompanied by the lady Berenike, who had found her at the chief priest's house, to visit her lover in the sick-rooms of the Serapeum.

Thankful and happy, she had found him with fully recovered consciousness, but the physician and the freedman Andreas, whom she met at the door of the chamber, had impressed on her the importance of avoiding all excitement.