peace with myself and my God I ask nothing of any one.
He that abases himself--aye, he that abases himself!--My hour too shall
come, and above and beyond this life I shall see them all once more;
Petrus and Dorothea, Agapitus and the brethren who now refuse to receive
me, and then, when my Saviour himself beckons me to Him, they will see
me as I am, and hasten to me and greet me with double kindness."

He looked up, proud and rejoicing as he thought thus, and painted to
himself the joys of Paradise, to which this day he had earned an assured
claim. He never took longer and swifter steps than when his mind was
occupied with such meditations, and when he reached Stephanus' cave
he thought the way from the oasis to the heights had been shorter than
usual.

He found the sick man in great anxiety, for he had waited until now for
his son in vain, and feared that Hermas had met with some accident--or
had abandoned him, and fled out into the world. Paulus soothed him with
gentle words, and told him of the errand on which he had sent the lad to
the farther coast of the sea.

We are never better disposed to be satisfied with even bad news than
when we have expected it to be much worse; so Stephanus listened to his
friend's explanation quite calmly, and with signs of approval. He could
no longer conceal from himself that Hermas was not ripe for the life of
an anchorite, and since he had learned that his unhappy wife--whom he
had so long given up for lost--had died a Christian, he found that he
could reconcile his thoughts to relinquishing the boy to the world.
He had devoted himself and his son to a life of penance, hoping and
striving that so Glycera's soul might be snatched from damnation, and
now he knew that she herself had earned her title to Heaven.

"When will he come home again?" he asked Paulus.

"In five or six days," was the answer. "Ali, the fisherman--out of whose
foot I took a thorn some time since--informed me secretly, as I was
going to church yesterday, that the Blemmyes are gathering behind the
sulphur-mountains; when they have withdrawn, it will be high time to
send Hermas to Alexandria. My brother is still alive, and for my sake he
will receive him as a blood-relation, for he too has been baptized."

"He may attend the school of catechumens in the metropolis, and if
he--if he--"

"That we shall see," interrupted Paulus. "For the present it comes to
this, we must let him go from hence, and leave him to s