some food brought to him, but even while he ate and drank, he was not
unoccupied, for he read the letters which awaited him, and examined some
drawings which his assistants had prepared during his absence.

"Give yourself an hour's respite," said the old housekeeper, who had been
his nurse and who loved him as her own son.

"I must go to my sister," he answered with a shrug. "We know her of
old," said the old woman. "For nothing, and less than nothing, she has
sent for you be fore now; and you absolutely need rest. There--are your
cushions right--so? And let me ask you, has the humblest stone-carrier
so hard a life as you have? Even at meals you never have an hour of
peace and comfort. Your poor head is never quiet; the nights are turned
into day; something to do, always something to do. If one only knew who
it is all for?"

"Aye--who for, indeed?" sighed Pontius, pushing his arm under his head,
between it and the pillow. "But, you see, little mother, work must
follow rest as surely as day follows night or summer follows winter. The
man who has something he loves in the House--a wife and merry children,
it may be, for aught I care--who sweeten his hours of rest and make them
the best of all the day, he, I say is wise when he tries to prolong them;
but his case is not mine--"

"But why is it not yours, my son Pontius?"

"Let me finish my speech. I, as you know full well, do not care for
gossip in the bath nor for reclining long over a banquet. In the pauses
of my work I am alone, with myself and with you, my very worthy Leukippe.
So the hours of rest are not for me the fairest scenes, but empty waits