laimed. "A purple coat would suit him better than that
wretched sheepskin."

The mistress shrugged her shoulders, and signing to her daughter said:
"Come to work, Marthana, the sun is already high. How the days fly! the
older one grows the quicker the hours hurry away."

"I must be very young then," said the centurion's wife, "for in this
wilderness time seems to me to creep along frightfully slow. One day is
the same as another, and I often feel as if life were standing perfectly
still, and my heart pulses with it. What should I be without your house
and the children?--always the same mountain, the same palm-trees, the
same faces!--"

"But the mountain is glorious, the trees are beautiful!" answered
Dorothea. "And if we love the people with whom we are in daily
intercourse, even here we may be contented and happy. At least we
ourselves are, so far as the difficulties of life allow. I have often
told you, what you want is work."

"Work! but for whom?" asked Sirona. "If indeed I had children like you!
Even in Rome I was not happy, far from it; and yet there was plenty to
do and to think about. Here a procession, there a theatre; but here! And
for whom should I dress even? My jewels grow dull in my chest, and the
moths eat my best clothes. I am making doll's clothes now of my colored
cloak for your little ones. If some demon were to transform me into a
hedge-hog or a grey owl, it would be all the same to me."

"Do not be so sinful," said Dorothea gravely, but looking with kindly
admiration at the golden hair and lovely sweet face of the young woman.
"It ought to be a pleasure to you to dress yourself for your husband."

"For him?" said Sirona. "He never looks at me, or if he does it is only
to abuse me. The only wonder to me is that I can still be merry at all;
nor am I, except in your house, and not there even but when I forget him
altogether."

"I will not hear such things said--not another word," interrupted
Dorothea severely. "Take the linen and cooling lotion, Marthana, we will
go and bind up Anubis' wound."

CHAPTER IV.

Petrus went up the mountain side with Hermas. The old man followed the
youth, who showed him the way, and as he raised his eyes from time to
time, he glanced with admiration at his guide's broad shoulders and
elastic limbs. The road grew broader when it reached a little mountain
plateau, and from thence the two men walked on side by side, but for
some time without speaking till the