ed: "Who are
you? what is your business?" Hermas struggled in vain for speech; the
presence of so many human beings, of whom three were women, filled him
with the utmost confusion. His fingers twisted the woolly curls on his
sheep-skin, and his lips moved but gave no sound; at last he succeeded
in stammering out, "I am the son of old Stephanus, who was wounded in
the last raid of the Saracens. My father has hardly slept these
five nights, and now Paulus has sent me to you--the pious Paulus of
Alexandria--but you know--and so I--"

"I see, I see," said Petrus with encouraging kindness. "You want some
medicine for the old man. See Dorothea, what a fine young fellow he is
grown, this is the little man that the Antiochian took with him up the
mountain."

Hermas colored, and drew himself up; then he observed with great
satisfaction that he was taller than the senator's sons, who were of
about the same age as he, and for whom he had a stronger feeling,
allied to aversion and fear, than even for their stern father. Polykarp
measured him with a glance, and said aloud to Sirona, with whom he had
exchanged a greeting, are off whom he had never once taken his eyes
since she had come in: "If we could get twenty slaves with such
shoulders as those, we should get on well. There is work to be done
here, you big fellow--"

"My name is not 'fellow,' but Hermas," said the anchorite, and the veins
of his forehead began to swell. Polykarp felt that his father's visitor
was something more than his poor clothing would seem to indicate
and that he had hurt his feelings. He had certainly seen some old
anchorites, who led a contemplative and penitential life up on the
sacred mountain, but it had never occurred to him that a strong youth
could be long to the brotherhood of hermits. So he said to him kindly:
"Hermas--is that your name? We all use our hands here and labor is no
disgrace; what is your handicraft?"

This question roused the young anchorite to the highest excitement, and
Dame Dorothea, who perceives what was passing in his mind, said with
quick decision: "He nurses his sick father. That is what you do, my son
is it not? Petrus will not refuse you his help."

"Certainly not," the senator added, "I will accompany you by-and-bye to
see him. You must know my children, that this youth's father was a great
Lord, who gave up rich possessions in order to forget the world, where
he had gone through bitter experiences, and to serve God i