rule than the exception
with them to accomplish their designs in the most circuitous manner, and by
the most unlikely instruments. He also reflected upon the history of the
Sibyl and her books, and shuddered to think that unseasonable obstinacy
might in the end cost the temple the whole of its revenues. The result of
his cogitations was a resolution, if the old woman should present herself
on the following day, to receive her in a different manner.

Punctual to the hour she made her appearance, and croaked out, "My price is
_three_ hundred pieces of gold."

"Venerable ambassadress of Heaven," said the priest, "thy boon is granted
thee. Relieve the anguish of my bosom as speedily as thou mayest."

The old woman's reply was brief and expressive. It consisted in extending
her open and hollow palm, into which the priest counted the three hundred
pieces of gold with as much expedition as was compatible with the frequent
interruptions necessitated by the crone's depositing each successive
handful in a leather pouch; and the scrutiny, divided between jealousy and
affection, which she bestowed on each individual coin.

"And now," said the priest, when the operation was at length completed,
"fulfil thy share of the compact."

"The cause of the oracle's silence," returned the old woman, "is the
unworthiness of the minister."

"Alas! 'tis even as I feared," sighed the priest. "Declare now, wherein
consists my sin?"

"It consists in this," replied the old woman, "that the beard of thy
understanding is not yet grown; and that the egg-shell of thy inexperience
is still sticking to the head of thy simplicity; and that thy brains bear
no adequate proportion to the skull enveloping them; and in fine, lest I
seem to speak overmuch in parables, or to employ a superfluity of epithets,
that thou art an egregious nincompoop."

And as the amazed priest preserved silence, she pursued:

"Can aught be more shameful in a religious man than ignorance of the very
nature of religion? Not to know that the term, being rendered into the
language of truth, doth therein signify deception practised by the few wise
upon the many foolish, for the benefit of both, but more particularly the
former? O silly as the crowds who hitherto have brought their folly here,
but now carry it elsewhere to the profit of wiser men than thou! O fool! to
deem that oracles were rendered by Apollo! How should this be, seeing that
there is no such person? Needs there,