girl, if Anubis recovers under your care. I will come presently with
Marthana, and show you how to make a bandage." The shepherdess cast down
her eyes, and passively allowed herself to be conducted to the wounded
man.

Meanwhile Marthana had prepared the brown mixture. Petrus had his staff
and felt-hat brought to him, gave Hermas the medicine and desired him to
follow him.

Sirona looked after the couple as they went. "What a pity for such a
fine lad!" she exclaimed. "A purple coat would suit him better than that
wretched sheepskin."

The mistress shrugged her shoulders, and signing to her daughter said:
"Come to work, Marthana, the sun is already high. How the days fly!
the older one grows the quicker the hours hurry away."

"I must be very young then," said the centurion's wife, "for in this
wilderness time seems to me to creep along frightfully slow. One day is
the same as another, and I often feel as if life were standing perfectly
still, and my heart pulses with it. What should I be without your house
and the children?--always the same mountain, the same palm-trees, the
same faces!--"

"But the mountain is glorious, the trees are beautiful!" answered
Dorothea. "And if we love the people with whom we are in daily
intercourse, even here we may be contented and happy. At least we
ourselves are, so far as the difficulties of life allow. I have often
told you, what you want is work."