ear from her eye as she replied, "They will meet
Antonius there. If only they could find Polykarp! And yet I honestly
say--not merely to comfort you--it is most probable that he has not met
with any accident in the mountain gorges, but has gone to Alexandria to
escape the memories that follow him here at every step--Was not that the
gate?"

She rose quickly and looked into the court, while Petrus, who had
followed her, did the same, saying with a deep sigh, as he turned to
Marthana--who, while she offered meat and bread to Hermas was watching
her parents--"It was only the slave Anubis."

For some time a painful silence reigned round the large table, to-day so
sparely furnished with guests.

At last Petrus turned to his guest and said, "You were to tell me how
the shepherdess Miriam lost her life in the struggle. She had run away
from our house--"

"Up the mountain," added Hermas. "She supplied my poor father with water
like a daughter."

"You see, mother," interrupted Marthana, "she was not bad-hearted--I
always said so."

"This morning," continued Hermas, nodding in sad assent to the maiden,
"she followed my father to the castle, and immediately after his fall,
Paulus told me, she rushed away from it, but only to seek me and to
bring me the sad news. We had known each other a long time, for years
she had watered her goats at our well, and while I was still quite a boy
and she a little girl, she would listen for hours when I played on my
willow pipe the songs which Paulus had taught me. As long as I played
she was perfectly quiet, and when I ceased she wanted to hear more and
still more, until I had too much of it and went away. Then she would
grow angry, and if I would not do her will she would scold me with bad
words. But she always came again, and as I had no other companion
and she was the only creature who cared to listen to me, I was very
well-content that she should prefer our well to all the others. Then we
grew order and I began to be afraid of her, for she would talk in such a
godless way--and she even died a heathen. Paulus, who once overheard us,
warned me against her, and as I had long thrown away the pipe and hunted
beasts with my bow and arrow whenever my father would let me, I was with
her for shorter intervals when I went to the well to draw water, and we
became more and more strangers; indeed, I could be quite hard to her.
Only once after I came back from the capital something happened--but
tha