ly and in the simplest words,
and until he was through there was no interruption; nor did the
listener in the chair so much as move a hand during the narration;
but for his eyes, wide open and bright, and an occasional long-drawn
breath, he might have been accounted an effigy.

"Thank you, thank you, Malluch," he said, heartily, at the conclusion;
"you have done well--no one could have done better. Now what say you
of the young man's nationality?"

"He is an Israelite, good master, and of the tribe of Judah."

"You are positive?"

"Very positive."

"He appears to have told you but little of his life."

"He has somewhere reamed to be prudent. I might call him distrustful.
He baffled all my attempts upon his confidence until we started from
the Castalian fount going to the village of Daphne."

"A place of abomination! Why went he there?"

"I would say from curiosity, the first motive of the many who go;
but, very strangely, he took no interest in the things he saw.
Of the Temple, he merely asked if it were Grecian. Good master,
the young man has a trouble of mind from which he would hide,
and he went to the Grove, I think, as we go to sepulchres with
our dead--he went to bury it."

"That were well, if so," Simonides said, in a low voice; then
louder, "Malluch, the curse of the time is prodigality. The poor
make themselves poorer as apes of the rich, and the merely rich
carry themselves like princes. Saw you signs of the weakness in the
youth? Did he display moneys--coin of Rome or Israel?"

"None, none, good master."

"Surely, Malluch, where there are so many inducements to folly--so
much, I mean, to eat and drink--surely he made you generous offer
of some sort. His age, if nothing more, would warrant that much."

"He neither ate nor drank in my company."

"In what he said or did, Malluch, could you in anywise detect his
master-idea? You know they peep through cracks close enough to stop
the wind."

"Give me to understand you," said Malluch, in doubt.

"Well, you know we nor speak nor act, much less decide grave
questions concerning ourselves, except as we be driven by a
motive. In that respect, what made you of him?"

"As to that, Master Simonides, I can answer with much assurance.
He is devoted to finding his mother and sister--that first. Then he
has a grievance against Rome; and as the Messala of whom I told you
had something to do with the wrong, the great present object is to
humiliate him. The