thing, but clings to the idea of the thing, continues--"

"That sounds like Plato," said Stephanus with a smile.

"All that heathen farrago comes back to me today," cried Paulus. "I used
to know it well, and I have often thought that his face must have
resembled that of the Saviour."

"But only as a beautiful song might resemble the voice of an angel," said
Stephanus somewhat drily. "He who plunges into the depths of philosophic
systems--"

"That never was quite my case," said Paulus. "I did indeed go through the
whole educational course; Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic and Music--"

"And Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy," added Stephanus.

"Those were left to the learned many years since," continued Paulus, "and
I was never very eager for learning. In the school of Rhetoric I remained
far behind my fellows, and if Plato was dear to me I owe it to Paedonomus
of Athens, a worthy man whom my father engaged to teach us."

"They say he had been a great merchant," interrupted Stephanus. "Can it
be that you were the son of that rich Herophilus, whose business in
Antioch was conducted by the worthy Jew Urbib?"

"Yes indeed," replied Paulus, looking down at the ground in some
confusion. "Our mode of life was almost royal, and the multitude of our
slaves quite sinful. When I look back on all the vain trifles that my
father had to care for, I feel quite giddy. Twenty sea-going ships in the
harbor of Eunostus, and eighty Nile-boats on Lake Mareotis belonged to
him. His profits on the manufacture of papyrus might have maintained a
cityfull of poor. But we needed our revenues for other things. Our
Cyraenian horses stood in marble stalls, and the great hall, in which my
father's friends were wont to meet, was like a temple. But you see how
the world takes possession of us, when we begin to think about it! Rather
let us leave the past in peace. You want me to tell you more of myself?
Well; my childhood passed like that of a thousand other rich citizens'
sons, only my mother, indeed, was exceptionally beautiful and sweet, and
of angelic goodness."

"Every child thinks his own mother the best of mothers," murmured the
sick man.

"Mine certainly was the best to me," cried Paulus. "And yet she was a
heathen. When my father hurt me with severe words of blame, she always
had a kind word and loving glance for me. There was little enough,
indeed, to praise in me. Learning was utterly distasteful to me, and even
if I had done bette