e of a Tyche is to stand in the hand of the statue of the Caesar
that is intended for the new city of Constantine, and so I have tried to
represent the goddess. The drapery and pose of the arms, I think, have
succeeded, but I failed in the head." Petrus, who had listened to
him with attention, glanced involuntarily at the head of Sirona, and
Polykarp followed his eyes surprised and almost startled.

The father and son had understood each other, and Polykarp said, "I had
already thought of that."

Then he sighed bitterly, and said to himself, "Yes and verily, she is
the goddess of my fate." But he dared not utter this aloud.

But Petrus had heard him sigh, and said, "Let that pass. This head
smiles with sweet fascination, and the countenance of the goddess that
rules the actions even of the immortals, should be stern and grave."

Polykarp could contain himself no longer.

"Yes, father," he exclaimed. "Fate is terrible--and yet I will represent
the goddess with a smiling mouth, for that which is most terrible in her
is, that she rules not by stern laws, but smiles while she makes us her
sport."

CHAPTER XV.

It was a splendid morning; not a cloud dimmed the sky which spread
high above desert, mountain, and oasis, like an arched tent of uniform
deep-blue silk. How delicious it is to breathe the pure, light, aromatic
air on the heights, before the rays of the sun acquire their mid-day
power, and the shadows of the heated porphyry cliffs, growing shorter
and shorter, at last wholly disappear!

With what delight did Sirona inhale this pure atmosphere, when after
a long night--the fourth that she had passed in the anchorite's dismal
cave-she stepped out into the air. Paulus sat by the hearth, and was so
busily engaged with some carving, that he did not observe her approach.

"Kind good man!" thought Sirona, as she perceived a steaming pot on the
fire, and the palm-branches which the Alexandrian had fastened up by the
entrance to the cave, to screen her from the mounting sun. She knew
the way without a guide to the spring from which Paulus had brought her
water at their first meeting, and she now slipped away, and went down
to it with a pretty little pitcher of burnt clay in her hand. Paulus did
indeed see her, but he made as though he neither, saw nor heard, for
he knew she was going there to wash herself, and to dress and smarten
herself as well as might be--for was she not a woman! When she returned,
she look