began to speak quickly. But he was
interrupted by the children's clamors on the stairs and by Sirona, who
brought Hermas to the senator, and said laughing: "I found this great
fellow on the stairs, he was seeking you."

Petrus looked at the youth, not very kindly, and asked: "Who are you?
what is your business?" Hermas struggled in vain for speech; the presence
of so many human beings, of whom three were women, filled him with the
utmost confusion. His fingers twisted the woolly curls on his sheep-skin,
and his lips moved but gave no sound; at last he succeeded in stammering
out, "I am the son of old Stephanus, who was wounded in the last raid of
the Saracens. My father has hardly slept these five nights, and now
Paulus has sent me to you--the pious Paulus of Alexandria--but you
know--and so I--"

"I see, I see," said Petrus with encouraging kindness. "You want some
medicine for the old man. See Dorothea, what a fine young fellow he is
grown, this is the little man that the Antiochian took with him up the
mountain."

Hermas colored, and drew himself up; then he observed with great
satisfaction that he was taller than the senator's sons, who were of
about the same age as he, and for whom he had a stronger feeling, allied
to aversion and fear, than even for their stern father. Polykarp measured
him with a glance, and said aloud to Sirona, with whom he had exchanged a
greeting, are off whom he had never once taken his eyes since she had
come in: If we could get twenty slaves with such shoulders as those, we
should get on well. There is work to be done here, you big fellow--"

"My name is not 'fellow,' but Hermas," said the anchorite, and the veins
of his forehead began to swell Polykarp felt that his father's visitor
was something more than his poor clothing would seem to indicate and that
he had hurt his feelings. He had certainly seen some old anchorites, who
led a contemplative and penitential life up on the sacred mountain, but
it had never occurred to him that a strong youth could be long to the
brotherhood of hermits. So he said to him kindly: "Hermas--is that your
name? We all use our hands here and labor is no disgrace; what is your
handicraft?"

This question roused the young anchorite to the highest excitement, and
Dame Dorothea, who perceives what was passing in his mind, said with
quick decision: "He nurses his sick father. That is what you do, my son
is it not? Petrus will not refuse you his help."

"C