s of repair, gates, courts,
lewens, stairways, terraces, rooms, and roof had been cleansed and
thoroughly restored; not only was there no reminder left of the tragic
circumstances so ruinous to the family, but the refurnishment was
in a style richer than before. At every point, indeed, a visitor
was met by evidences of the higher tastes acquired by the young
proprietor during his years of residence in the villa by Misenum
and in the Roman capital.

Now it should not be inferred from this explanation that Ben-Hur
had publicly assumed ownership of the property. In his opinion,
the hour for that was not yet come. Neither had he yet taken
his proper name. Passing the time in the labors of preparation
in Galilee, he waited patiently the action of the Nazarene,
who became daily more and more a mystery to him, and by prodigies
done, often before his eyes, kept him in a state of anxious doubt
both as to his character and mission. Occasionally he came up to
the Holy City, stopping at the paternal house; always, however,
as a stranger and a guest.

These visits of Ben-Hur, it should also be observed, were for more
than mere rest from labor. Balthasar and Iras made their home in the
palace; and the charm of the daughter was still upon him with all
its original freshness, while the father, though feebler in body,
held him an unflagging listener to speeches of astonishing power,
urging the divinity of the wandering miracle-worker of whom they
were all so expectant.

As to Simonides and Esther, they had arrived from Antioch only
a few days before this their reappearance--a wearisome journey
to the merchant, borne, as he had been, in a palanquin swung
between two camels, which, in their careening, did not always
keep the same step. But now that he was come, the good man,
it seemed, could not see enough of his native land. He delighted
in the perch upon the roof, and spent most of his day hours there
seated in an arm-chair, the duplicate of that one kept for him in
the cabinet over the store-house by the Orontes. In the shade of
the summer-house he could drink fully of the inspiring air lying
lightly upon the familiar hills; he could better watch the sun
rise, run its course, and set as it used to in the far-gone, not a
habit lost; and with Esther by him it was so much easier up there
close to the sky, to bring back the other Esther, his love in youth,
his wife, dearer growing with the passage of years. And yet he
was not unmindf