nd you will hear nothing said of you but that you are a
tall, fine man!"

As the warm-hearted girl thus spoke, defending her friend against
himself, Paula stroked her golden hair and added to the physician:

"Pulcheria's father is so far right that she, at any rate, measures men
by a true and straight standard. Note that, Philippus!--But do not take
my questioning ill.--I cannot help wondering how a man of one and thirty
and one of seventy should have been studying in the high schools at the
same time? The moon will not be eclipsed for a long time yet--how bright
and clear it is!--So you, Rufinus, who have wandered so far through the
wide world, if you would do me a great pleasure, will tell us something
of your past life and how you came to settle in Memphis."

"His history?" cried Joanna. "If he were to tell it, in all its details
from beginning to end, the night would wane and breakfast would get
cold. He has had as many adventures as travelled Odysseus. But tell us
something husband; you know there is nothing we should like better."

"I must be off to my duties," said the leech, and when he had taken
a friendly leave of the others and bidden farewell to Paula with less
effusiveness than of late, Rufinus began his story.

"I was born in Alexandria, where, at that time, commerce and industry
still flourished. My father was an armorer; above two hundred slaves and
free laborers were employed in his work-shops. He required the finest
metal, and commonly procured it by way of Massilia from Britain. On one
occasion he himself went to that remote island in a friend's ship, and
he there met my mother. Her ruddy gold hair, which Pul has inherited,
seems to have bewitched him and, as the handsome foreigner pleased her
well--for men like my father are hard to match nowadays--she turned
Christian for his sake and came home with him. They neither of them ever
regretted it; for though she was a quiet woman, and to her dying day
spoke Greek like a foreigner, the old man often said she was his best
counsellor. At the same time she was so soft-hearted, that she could
not bear that any living creature should suffer, and though she looked
keenly after everything at the hearth and loom, she could never see
a fowl, a goose, or a pig slaughtered. And I have inherited her
weakness--shall I say 'alas!' or 'thank God?'

"I had two elder brothers who both had to help my father, and who
were to carry on the business. When I was ten years