here was some one to welcome
them where least they had expected word of welcome, and they followed
the messenger.

Horn lantern in hand he led them through the warm June darkness, and on
the way answered many questions as to the folk of these parts, and
their strange worship of sun and moon and wandering light of heaven;
"but in a brief while," he said, "all these heathen matters will be put
by, when you have taught them the new faith."

Up a gloomily wooded rise he guided them, till they passed into the
radiance of a house lit with many lamps and cressets, and the house,
they saw, was of fair marble such as are the houses of the patricians
of Rome; and many beautiful slaves, lightly clad and garlanded with
roses, brought them water in silver bowls and white linen wherewith
they might cleanse themselves from the dust of their travel.

In a little the Lady Pelagia received them and bade them welcome, and
prayed them to make her poor house their dwelling-place while they
sojourned in that waste of heathendom. Then she led them to a repast
which had been made ready for them.

Of all the gracious and lovely women in the round of the kingdoms of
the earth none is, or hath been, or will be, more marvellous in beauty
or in sweetness of approach than this lady; and she made Hilary sit
beside her, and questioned him of the Saints in the Queen City of the
world, and of his labours and his long wanderings, and the perils
through which he and his companions had come. All the while she spoke
her starry eyes shed soft light on his face, and she leaned towards him
her lovely head and fragrant bosom, drinking in his words with a look
of longing. The companions whispered among themselves that assuredly
this was rather an Angel of Paradise than a mortal creature of the dust
of the earth, which to-day is as a flower in its desirableness and
to-morrow is blown about all the ways of men's feet. Even the good
Bishop felt his heart moved towards her with a strange tenderness, so
sweet was the thought of her youth and her beauty and her goodness and
humility.

Sitting in this fashion at table and conversing, and the talk now
veering to this and now to that, the Lady Pelagia said: "This longest
of the days has been to me the most happy, holy fathers, for it has
brought you to the roof of a sinful woman, and you have not disdained
the service she has offered you in all lowliness of heart. A long and,
it may be, a dangerous labour lies