e now was very friendly to him, and looked him in the face from time to
time as though to ask, "Do you think she will recover?"

Paulus was fond of animals, and understood the little dog's language.
When Sirona's lips began to move and to recover their rosy color, he
stroked Iambe's smooth sharp head, and said, as he held a leaf that he
had curled up to hold some water to Sirona's lips, "Look, little fellow,
how she begins to enjoy it! A little more of this, and again a little
more. She smacks her lips as if I were giving her sweet Falernian. I
will go and fill the stone again; you stop here with her, I shall be
back again directly, but before I return she will have opened her eyes;
you are pleasanter to look upon than a shaggy old graybeard, and she
will be better pleased to see you than me when she awakes." Paulus'
prognosis was justified, for when he returned to Sirona with a fresh
supply of water she was sitting upright; she rubbed her open eyes,
stretched her limbs, clasped the greyhound in both arms, and burst into
a violent flood of tears.

The Alexandrian stood aside motionless, so as not to disturb her,
thinking to himself:

"These tears will wash away a large part of her suffering from her
soul."

When at last she was calmer, and began to dry her eyes, he went up to
her, offered her the stone cup of water, and spoke to her kindly. She
drank with eager satisfaction, and ate the last bit of bread that he
could find in the pocket of his garment, soaking it in the water. She
thanked him with the childlike sweetness that was peculiar to her, and
then tried to rise, and willingly allowed him to support her. She was
still very weary, and her head ached, but she could stand and walk.

As soon as Paulus had satisfied himself that she had no symptoms Of
fever, he said, "Now, for to-day, you want nothing more but a warm mess
of food, and a bed sheltered from the night-chill; I will provide both.
You sit down here; the rocks are already throwing long shadows, and
before the sun disappears behind the mountain I will return. While I am
away, your four-footed companion here will while away the time."

He hastened down to the spring with quick steps; close to it was the
abandoned cave which he had counted on inhabiting instead of his former
dwelling. He found it after a short search, and in it, to his great joy,
a well preserved bed of dried plants, which he soon shook up and relaid,
a hearth, and wood proper for produc