ngratulated himself
on his promised bride."

"Paula and Orion!" cried Pulcheria, jubilant in the midst of her tears,
and clapping her hands for joy.

"A pair indeed!" said the old man. "You may well rejoice, my girl! Feeble
hearts as you all are, respect the experience of the aged, and bless Fate
if it should lame the horse of the Kadi's messenger!--However, you will
not listen to anything oracular, so it will be better to talk of
something else."

"No, no," cried Joanna. "What can we think of but her and her fate? Oh,
Horapollo, I do not know you in this mood. What has that poor soul done
to you, persecuted as she is by the hardest fate--that noble creature who
is so dear to us all? And do you forget that the judges who have
sentenced her will now proceed to enquire what Rufinus, and we all of us.
. ."

"What you had to do with that mad scheme of rescue?" interrupted
Horapollo. "I will make it my business to prevent that. So long as this
old brain is able to think, and this mouth to speak, not a hair of your
heads shall be hurt."

"We are grateful to you," said Joanna. "But, if you have such power, set
to work--you know how dear Paula is to us all, how highly your friend
Philip esteems her--use your power to save her."

"I have no power, and refuse to have any," retorted the old man harshly."

"But Horapollo, Horapollo!--Come here, children!--We were to find in you
a second father--so you promised. Then prove that those were no empty
words, and be entreated by us."

The old man drew a deep breath; he rose to his feet with such vigor as he
could command, a bright, sharply-defined patch of color tinged each pale
cheek, and he exclaimed in husky tones:

"Not another word! No attempt to move me, not a cry of lamentation!
Enough, and a thousand times too much, of that already. You have heard
me, and I now say again--me or Paula, Paula or me. Come what may in the
future, if you cannot so far control yourselves as never to mention her
in my presence, I--no, I do not swear, but when I have said a thing I
keep to it--I will go back to my old den and drag out life the richer by
a disappointment--or die, as my ruling goddess shall please."

With this he left the room, and little Mary raised her clenched right
fist and shook it after him, exclaiming: "Then let him go, hard-hearted,
unjust, old scarecrow! Oh, if only I were a man!" And she burst out
crying aloud. Heedless of the widow's reproof, she went on quite beside