hat would soothe Jesus; but, as it often is on
such occasions, the more we seek for the right words the further we seem
to be from them, and Joseph did not know how he might plausibly unsay
his story that he had carried him without vexing Jesus still further: he
is sure an angel carried him, Joseph said: he felt the feathers of the
wings brush across his face, and he is now asking himself why I lied to
him.

As Joseph was thinking that it might be well to say that Bethlehem was
like Nazareth, he caught sight of Jesus' face as pale as ashes, more
like a dead face than a living, and fearing that he was about to swoon
again or die, Joseph called loudly for Esora, who came running down the
pathway.

Thou mustn't call for me so loudly, Master. If Matred had heard thee and
come running---- But, Esora, look. As likely as not it is no more than a
little faintness, she said. He has been overdoing it: running after
puppies, and talking with thee about Caesarea. But it was thyself told me
to ask him to go to Caesarea for change of air. Never mind, Master, what
I told thee. We must think now how we shall get him back to bed. Do thou
take one arm and I'll take the other.

CHAP. XXII.

Jesus did not speak about angels again, and one morning at the end of
the week before going away to Jerusalem to attend to some important
business Joseph, after a talk with Esora, turned down the alley with the
intention of asking Jesus to leave Judea. It would have been better, she
said to herself, if he had waited till evening; these things cannot be
settled off-hand; he'll only say the wrong thing again, and she stood
waiting at her kitchen door, hoping that Joseph would stop on his way
out to tell her Jesus' decision, but he went away without speaking, and
she began to think it unlikely that anything was decided. He is
soft-hearted and without much will of his own, she said.... Jesus is
going to stay with us, so we may all hang upon crosses yet, unless,
indeed, Master comes to hear something in Jerusalem that will bring him
round to my way of thinking. He believes, she continued, that Jesus is
forgotten because the apostles have returned to their fishing, but that
cannot be; the two young women that came here one Sunday morning with a
story about an empty sepulchre have found, I'll vouch, plenty of eager
gossips, and a smile floated round her old face at the additions she
heard to it yester morning at the gates. But no good would come o