ing fire by friction, a water-jar,
and in a cellar-like hole, whose opening was covered with stones and so
concealed from any but a practised eye, there were some cakes of hard
bread, and several pots. In one of these were some good dates, in
another gleamed some white meal, a third was half full of sesame-oil,
and a fourth held some salt.

"How lucky it is," muttered the anchorite, as he quitted the cave, "that
the old anchorite was such a glutton."

By the time he returned to Sirona, the sun was going down.

There was something in the nature and demeanor of Paulus, which made all
distrust of him impossible, and Sirona was ready to follow him, but she
felt so weak that she could scarcely support herself on her feet.

"I feel," she said, "as if I were a little child, and must begin again
to learn to walk."

"Then let me be your nurse. I knew a Spartan dame once, who had a beard
almost as rough as mine. Lean confidently on me, and before we go down
the slope, we will go up and down the level here two or three times."
She took his arm, and he led her slowly up and down.

It vividly recalled a picture of the days of his youth, and he
remembered a day when his sister, who was recovering from a severe
attack of fever, was first allowed to go out into the open air. She had
gone out, clinging to his arm into the peristyle of his father's house;
as he walked backward and forwards with poor, weary, abandoned Sirona,
his neglected figure seemed by degrees to assume the noble aspect of a
high-born Greek; and instead of the rough, rocky soil, he felt as if
he were treading the beautiful mosaic pavement of his father's court.
Paulus was Menander again, and if there was little in the presence of
the recluse, which could recall his identity with the old man he had
trodden down, the despised anchorite felt, while the expelled and sinful
woman leaned on his arm, the same proud sense of succoring a woman, as
when he was the most distinguished youth of a metropolis, and when he
had led forward the master's much courted daughter in the midst of a
shouting troop of slaves.

Sirona had to remind Paulus that night was coming on, and was startled,
when the hermit removed her hand from his arm with ungentle haste, and
called to her to follow him with a roughness that was quite new to him.
She obeyed, and wherever it was necessary to climb over the rocks, he
supported and lifted her, but he only spoke when she addressed him.

When they