y of our
admiration for another is that it is always looking for circumstances
to justify itself.

At length a man approached and spoke to him.

"What would you have?"

"I would see Simonides, the merchant."

"Will you come this way?"

By a number of paths left in the stowage, they finally came to
a flight of steps; ascending which, he found himself on the
roof of the depot, and in front of a structure which cannot
be better described than as a lesser stone house built upon
another, invisible from the landing below, and out west of the
bridge under the open sky. The roof, hemmed in by a low wall,
seemed like a terrace, which, to his astonishment, was brilliant
with flowers; in the rich surrounding, the house sat squat, a plain
square block, unbroken except by a doorway in front. A dustless path
led to the door, through a bordering of shrubs of Persian rose
in perfect bloom. Breathing a sweet attar-perfume, he followed
the guide.

At the end of a darkened passage within, they stopped before a
curtain half parted. The man called out,

"A stranger to see the master."

A clear voice replied, "In God's name, let him enter."

A Roman might have called the apartment into which the visitor was
ushered his atrium. The walls were paneled; each panel was comparted
like a modern office-desk, and each compartment crowded with labelled
folios all filemot with age and use. Between the panels, and above and
below them, were borders of wood once white, now tinted like cream,
and carved with marvellous intricacy of design. Above a cornice of
gilded balls, the ceiling rose in pavilion style until it broke
into a shallow dome set with hundreds of panes of violet mica,
permitting a flood of light deliciously reposeful. The floor was
carpeted with gray rugs so thick that an invading foot fell half
buried and soundless.

In the midlight of the room were two persons--a man resting in a
chair high-backed, broad-armed, and lined with pliant cushions;
and at his left, leaning against the back of the chair, a girl
well forward into womanhood. At sight of them Ben-Hur felt the
blood redden his forehead; bowing, as much to recover himself as
in respect, he lost the lifting of the hands, and the shiver and
shrink with which the sitter caught sight of him--an emotion as
swift to go as it had been to come. When he raised his eyes the
two were in the same position, except the girl's hand had fallen
and was resting lightly upon the elder'