oubt, the same. What
was it? Was it rank which gave it Arsenius had been a great man, he
knew--the companion of kings. And Raphael seemed rich. He had heard
the mob crying out against the prefect for favouring him. Was it then
familiarity with the great ones of the world which produced this manner
and tone? It was a real strength, whether in Arsenius or in Raphael. He
felt humbled before it--envied it. If it made Arsenius a more complete
and more captivating person, why should it not do the same for him? Why
should not he, too, have his share of it?

Bringing with it such thoughts as these, the time ran on till noon, and
the mid-day meal, and the afternoon's work, to which Philammon looked
forward joyfully, as a refuge from his own thoughts.

He was sitting on his sheepskin upon a step, basking, like a true son
of the desert, in a blaze of fiery sunshine, which made the black
stone-work too hot to touch with the bare hand, watching the swallows,
as they threaded the columns of the Serapeium, and thinking how often he
had delighted in their air-dance, as they turned and hawked up and down
the dear old glen at Scetis. A crowd of citizens with causes,
appeals, and petitions, were passing in and out from the patriarch's
audience-room. Peter and the archdeacon were waiting in the shade close
by for the gathering of the parabolani, and talking over the morning's
work in an earnest whisper, in which the names of Hypatia and Orestes
were now and then audible.

An old priest came up, and bowing reverently enough to the archdeacon,
requested the help of one of the parabolani. He had a sailor's family,
all fever-stricken, who must be removed to the hospital at once.

The archdeacon looked at him, answered an off-hand 'Very well,' and went
on with his talk.

The priest, bowing lower than before, re-presented the immediate
necessity for help.

'It is very odd,' said Peter to the swallows in the Serapeium, 'that
some people cannot obtain influence enough in their own parishes to get
the simplest good works performed without tormenting his holiness the
patriarch.'

The old priest mumbled some sort of excuse, and the archdeacon, without
deigning a second look at him, said--'Find him a man, brother Peter.
Anybody will do. What is that boy--Philammon--doing there? Let him go
with Master Hieracas.'

Peter seemed not to receive the proposition favourably, and whispered
something to the archdeacon....

'No. I can spare none of t