to let the matter
rest."

The old man muttered a curse on her; then he said with a vicious, sharp
flash in his eyes: "That patrician viper! Every where in everything--she
spoils it all! But wait a while! I fancy she will soon be removed from
our path, and then. . . . No, even now, at the present time, I will not
allow that we should be deprived of what would embellish life, of doing a
thing which may turn the scale in my favor in the day of judgment. The
wishes of a dying man are sacred: So our fathers held it; and they were
right. The old man's will must be done! Yes, yes, yes. It is settled. As
soon as that hindrance is removed, we will keep house with the two women.
I have said; and I mean it."

At this point the gardener came in again, and the old man called out to
him:

"Listen, man. We shall live together after all; you shall hear more of
this later. Stay with my people till sundown, but you must keep your own
counsel, for they are all listeners and blabs. The physician here will
now take the melancholy tidings to the unfortunate widow, and then you
can talk it all over with her at night. Nothing startling must take place
at the house there; and with regard to your master, even his death must
remain a secret from every one but us and his family."

The gardener knew full well how much depended on his silence; Philippus
tacitly agreed to the old man's arrangement, but for the present he
avoided discussing the matter with the women. When, at length he set off
on his painful errand to the widow, Horapollo dismissed him saying:

"Courage, courage, my Son.--And as you pass by, just glance at our little
garden;--we grieved to see the fine old palm-tree perish; but now a young
and vigorous shoot is growing from the root."

"It has been drooping since yesterday and will die away," replied
Philippus shrugging his shoulders.

But the old man exclaimed: "Water it, Gibbus! the palm-tree must be
watered at once."

"Aye, you have water at hand for that!" retorted the leech, but he added
bitterly as he reached the stairs, "If it were so in all cases!"

"Patience and good purpose will always win," murmured the old man; and
when he was alone he growled on angrily: "Only be rid of that dry old
palm-tree--his past life in all its relations to that patrician hussy
Away with it, into the fire!--But how am I to get her? How can I manage
it?"

He threw himself back in his arm-chair, rubbing his forehead with the
tips of his