in
had vanished.

Sirona was now sitting at her loom in the front room, whither she had
been tempted by the sound of approaching hoofs. Polykarp had ridden by on
his father's fine horse, had greeted her as he passed, and had dropped a
rose on the roadway. Half an hour later the old black slave came to
Sirona, who was throwing the shuttle through the warp with a skilful
hand.

"Mistress," cried the negress with a hideous grin; the lonely woman
paused in her work, and as she looked up enquiringly the old woman gave
her a rose. Sirona took the flower, blew away the road-side dust that had
clung to it, rearranged the tumbled delicate petals with her finger-tips,
and said, while she seemed to give the best part of her attention to this
occupation, "For the future let roses be when you find them. You know
Phoebicius, and if any one sees it, it will be talked about."

The black woman turned away, shrugging her shoulders; but Sirona thought,
"Polykarp is a handsome and charming man, and has finer and more
expressive eyes than any other here, if he were not always talking of his
plans, and drawings, and figures, and mere stupid grave things that I do
not care for!"

CHAPTER VII.

The next day, after the sun had passed the meridian and it was beginning
to grow cool, Hermas and Paulus yielded to Stephanus' wish, as he began
to feel stronger, and carried him out into the air. The anchorites sat
near each other on a low block of stone, which Hermas had made into a
soft couch for his father by heaping up a high pile of fresh herbs. They
looked after the youth, who had taken his bow and arrows, as he went up
the mountain to hunt a wild goat; for Petrus had prescribed a
strengthening diet for the sick man. Not a word was spoken by either of
them till the hunter had disappeared. Then Stephanus said, "How much he
has altered since I have been ill. It is not so very long since I last
saw him by the broad light of day, and he seems meantime to have grown
from a boy into a man. How self-possessed his gait is."

Paulus, looking down at the ground, muttered some words of assent. He
remembered the discus-throwing and thought to himself, "The Palaestra
certainly sticks in his mind, and he has been bathing too; and yesterday,
when he came up from the oasis, he strode in like a young athlete."

That friendship only is indeed genuine when two friends, without speaking
a word to each other, can nevertheless find happiness in being tog