that
often she could not help laughing. But presently he was sad, as he told
her how at an early age he had lost his father and mother, and was
left to depend solely on himself and on a very small fortune, having no
relations; for his father had been a grammarian, invited to Alexandria
from Athens, who had been forced to make a road for himself through
life, which had lain before him like an overgrown jungle of papyrus
and reeds. Every hour of his life was devoted to his work, for a rough,
outspoken Goliath, such as he, never could find it easy to meet with
helpful patrons. He had managed to live by teaching in the high schools
of Alexandria, Athens, and Caesarea, and by preparing medicines from
choice herbs--drinking water instead of wine, eating bread and fruit
instead of quails and pies; and he had made a friend of many a good man,
but never yet of a woman--it would be difficult with such a face as his!

"Then I am the first?" said Paula, who felt deep respect for the man who
had made his way by his own energy to the eminent position which he
had long held, not merely in Memphis, but among Egyptian physicians
generally.

He nodded, and with such a blissful smile that she felt as though a
sunbeam had shone into her very soul. He noticed this at once, raised
his goblet, and drank to her, exclaiming with a flush on his cheek:

"The joy that comes to others early has come to me late; but then the
woman I call my friend is matchless!"

"Well, it is to be hoped she may not prove to be so wicked as you just
now described her.--If only our alliance is not fated to end soon and
abruptly."

"Ah!" cried the physician, "every drop of blood in my veins...."

"You would be ready to shed it for me," Paula broke in, with a pathetic
gesture, borrowed from a great tragedian she had seen at the theatre in
Damascus. "But never fear: it will not be a matter of life and death--at
worst they will but turn me out of the house and of Memphis."

"You?" cried Philippus startled, "but who would dare to do so?"

"They who still regard me as a stranger.--You described the case
admirably. If they have their way, my dear new friend, our fate will be
like that of the learned Dionysius of Cyrene."

"Of Cyrene?"

"Yes. It was my father who told me the story. When Dionysius sent his
son to the High School at Athens, he sat down to write a treatise for
him on all the things a student should do and avoid. He devoted himself
to the task with