nds--and patience without end! Sixty-five years have I
lived, and have always had good health, but I could almost wish to be ill
for once, in order to be nursed by you. That poor child is well off
better than many a king's child when it is sick; for him hireling nurses,
no doubt, fetch and do all that is necessary, but one thing they cannot
give, for they have it not; I mean the loving and indefatigable patience
by which you have worked a miracle on this child's mind, and are now
working another on his body. Aye, aye, my girl; it is to you and not me
that this woman will owe her child if it is preserved to her. Do you hear
me, woman? and tell your husband so too; and if you do not reverence Klea
as a goddess, and do not lay your hands beneath her feet, may you
be--no--I will wish you no ill, for you have not too much of the good
things of life as it is!"

As he spoke the gate-keeper's wife came timidly up to the physician and
the sick child, pushed her rough and tangled hair off her forehead a
little, crossed her lean arms at full length behind her back, and,
looking down with out-stretched neck at the boy, stared in dumb amazement
at the wet cloths. Then she timidly enquired:

"Are the evil spirits driven out of the child?"

"Certainly," replied the physician. "Klea there has exorcised them, and I
have helped her; now you know."

"Then I may go out for a little while? I have to sweep the pavement of
the forecourt."

Klea nodded assent, and when the woman had disappeared the physician
said:

"How many evil demons we have to deal with, alas! and how few good ones.
Men are far more ready and willing to believe in mischievous spirits than
in kind or helpful ones; for when things go ill with them--and it is
generally their own fault when they do--it comforts them and flatters
their vanity if only they can throw the blame on the shoulders of evil
spirits; but when they are well to do, when fortune smiles on them of
course, they like to ascribe it to themselves, to their own cleverness or
their superior insight, and they laugh at those who admonish them of the
gratitude they owe to the protecting and aiding demons. I, for my part,
think more of the good than of the evil spirits, and you, my child,
without doubt are one of the very best.

"You must change the compress every quarter of an hour, and between
whiles go out into the open air, and let the fresh breezes fan your
bosom--your cheeks look pale. At mid-day go to