I do not regret it.'

'Bitter or not, it was bread, and when we are hungry, we must eat.'

'In listening to the words of Jesus,' replied the other courtezan,
mildly, 'I should have forgotten hunger.'

'Oliba, you will become mad. To feed upon words!'

'The words of Jesus always say: pardon, mercy, love; and hitherto for us
there was nothing but words of scorn and contempt!' And the courtezan
remained pensive, her forehead resting upon her hand.

'You are a strange girl, Oliba,' continued the other, 'but however,
empty as it is, we shall not have even this supper of words; for the
Nazarene will not come now: it is too late.'

'On the contrary, I trust the all powerful God may direct him here!'
said a poor woman seated on the ground near the two courtezans, and
holding in her arms a sickly child:--

'I am come from Bethlehem on foot to pray our good Jesus to cure my poor
little babe; he is unparalleled for the cure of diseases of children,
and far from being paid for his advices, he often gives you something
wherewith to purchase the balsams he prescribes.'

'By the body of Solomon! I, too, hope that our friend Jesus will come
here to-night,' observed a tall man, with a ferocious face, and a long
stiff beard, dressed in a red rag of a turban, and a short robe of
camel's hair, almost in rags, confined at the waist by a cord supporting
a large rusty cutlass without a sheath. This man also held in his hand
a long stick with an iron knob at the point.

'If our worthy friend of Nazareth does not come to-night, I shall have
lost my time for nothing, for I had engaged to escort a traveller who
feared going alone from Jerusalem to Bethlehem lest he should meet with
unpleasant encounters.'

'Just look at that bandit, with his hang-dog face and his grand cutlass!
Does he not look like a very safe escort?' quietly said to his companion
one of the two emissaries, seated not very far from Genevieve.

'What a daring villain!'

'He would have murdered and robbed the too confident traveller in the
first bye way!' said the other emissary.

'As true as my name is Banaias!' continued the man with the cutlass, 'I
should have lost without regret this little godsend of escorting a
traveller if our friend of Nazareth had come, I like the man. I must
say! he consoles you not a little for wearing rags, by showing that
since they can no more enter into paradise than a camel can pass through
the eye of a needle, all the wicked rich w