othea, the deaconess. Just look! the youngster has really
thought of his father's breakfast--one's own stomach is a good reminder.
Only put the bread and the water down here by the couch; while you are
gone I will fetch some fresh--now, come with me."

"Wait a minute, wait," cried Stephanus. "Bring a new jar with you from
the town, my son. You lent us yours yesterday, Paulus, and I must--"

"I should soon have forgotten it," interrupted the other. "I have to
thank the careless fellow, for I have now for the first time discovered
the right way to drink, as long as one is well and able. I would not
have the jar back for a measure of gold; water has no relish unless you
drink it out of the hollow of your hand! The shard is yours. I should be
warring against my own welfare, if I required it back. God be praised!
the craftiest thief can now rob me of nothing save my sheepskin."

Stephanus would have thanked him, but he took Hermas by the hand, and
led him out into the open air. For some time the two men walked in
silence over the clefts and boulders up the mountain side. When they had
reached a plateau, which lay on the road that led from the sea over the
mountain into the oasis, he turned to the youth, and said:

"If we always considered all the results of our actions there would be
no sins committed."

Hermas looked at him enquiringly, and Paulus went on, "If it had
occurred to you to think how sorely your poor father needed sleep, you
would have lain still this night."

"I could not," said the youth sullenly. "And you know very well that I
scourged myself hard enough."

"That was quite right, for you deserved a flogging for a misconducted
boy."

Hermas looked defiantly at his reproving friend, the flaming color
mounted to his cheek: for he remembered the shepherdess's words that he
might go and complain to his nurse, and he cried out angrily:

"I will not let any one speak to me so; I am no longer a child."

"Not even your father's?" asked Paulus, and he looked at the boy with
such an astonished and enquiring air, that Hermas turned away his eyes
in confusion.

"It is not right at any rate to trouble the last remnant of life of that
very man who longs to live for your sake only."

"I should have been very willing to be still, for I love my father as
well as any one else."

"You do not beat him," replied Paulus, "you carry him bread and water,
and do not drink up the wine yourself, which the Bishop sends him