. That which is evil can never
more be fair, and however lovely the face there may look to you, it
looks quite as repulsive to me when I reflect that it probably smiled
still more fascinatingly on some strolling beggar. If the Gaul brings
her back I will turn her out of my house, and I will destroy her image
with my own hands if you do not break it in pieces on the spot."

Dorothea's eyes were swimming in tears as she spoke these words. She
had felt with pride and emotion during her son's speech how noble and
high-minded he was, and the idea that this rare and precious treasure
should be spoilt or perhaps altogether ruined for the sake of a lost
woman, drove her to desperation, and filled her motherly heart with
indignation.

Firmly resolved to carry out her threat she stepped towards the figure,
but Polykarp placed himself in her way, raising his arm imploringly to
defend it, and saying, "Not to-day--not yet, mother! I will cover it
up, and will not look at it again till to-morrow, but once--only once--I
must see it again by sunlight."

"So that to-morrow the old madness may revive in you!" cried Dorothea.
"Move out of my way or take the hammer yourself."

"You order it, and you are my mother," said Polykarp.

He slowly went up to the chest in which his tools and instruments lay,
and bitter tears ran down his cheeks, as he took his heaviest hammer in
his hand.

When the sky has shown for many days in summer-blue, and then suddenly
the clouds gather for a storm, when the first silent but fearful flash
with it noisy but harmless associate the thunder-clap has terrified the
world, a second and third thunder-bolt immediately follow. Since the
stormy night of yesterday had broken in on the peaceful, industrious,
and monotonous life by the senator's hearth, many things had happened
that had filled him and his wife with fresh anxiety.

In other houses it was nothing remarkable that a slave should run away,
but in the senator's it was more than twenty years since such a thing
had occurred, and yesterday the goat-herd Miriam had disappeared. This
was vexatious, but the silent sorrow of his son Polykarp was a greater
anxiety to Petrus. It did not please him that the youth, who was usually
so vehement, should submit unresistingly and almost indifferently to the
Bishop Agapitus, who prohibited his completing his lions. His son's sad
gaze, his crushed and broken aspect were still in his mind when at last
he went to rest for