on. Be kind to the boy again. Do you know what
prospect lies before you through him? You yourself in your life have done
much good, and spoken much wisdom, and I, and the children, and the
people in this place, will never forget it all. But I can promise you the
gratitude of the best and noblest who now live or who will live in
centuries to come--for that you are the mother of Polykarp!"

"And people say," cried Dorothea, "that every mother has four eyes for
her children's merits. If that is true, then fathers no doubt have ten,
and you as many as Argus, of whom the heathen legend speaks--But there
comes Polykarp."

Petrus went forward to meet his son, and gave him his hand, but in quite
a different manner to what he had formerly shown; at least it seemed to
Dorothea that her husband received the youth, no longer as his father and
master, but as a friend greets a friend who is his equal in privileges
and judgment. When Polykarp turned to greet her also she colored all
over, for the thought flashed through her mind that her son, when he
thought of the past night, must regard her as unjust or foolish; but she
soon recovered her own calm equanimity, for Polykarp was the same as
ever, and she read in his eyes that he felt towards her the same as
yesterday and as ever.

"Love," thought she, "is not extinguished by injustice, as fire is by
water. It blazes up brighter or less bright, no doubt, according to the
way the wind blows, but it cannot be wholly smothered--least of all by
death."

Polykarp had been up the mountain, and Dorothea was quite satisfied when
he related what had led him thither. He had long since planned the
execution of a statue of Moses, and when his father had left him, he
could not get the tall and dignified figure of the old man out of his
mind. He felt that he had found the right model for his work. He must, he
would forget--and he knew, that he could only succeed if he found a task
which might promise to give some new occupation to his bereaved soul.
Still, he had seen the form of the mighty man of God which he proposed to
model, only in vague outline before his mind's eye, and he had been
prompted to go to a spot whither many pilgrims resorted, and which was
known as the Place of Communion, because it was there that the Lord had
spoken to Moses. There Polykarp had spent some time, for there, if
anywhere--there, where the Law-giver himself had stood, must he find
right inspiration.

"And you hav