Dorothea's kind eyes moistened as she spoke, and Petrus warmly clasped
her hands in his as he said, "And if the gnarled old trunk bears from
time to time some sweet fruit, he may thank the graft for it. I cannot
believe that the anchorites up yonder are peculiarly pleasing to the Lord
because they live in solitude. Man comes to his perfect humanity only
through his wife and child, and he who has them not, can never learn the
most glorious heights and the darkest depths of life and feeling. If a
man may stake his whole existence and powers for anything, surely it is
for his own house."

"And you have honestly done so for ours!" cried Dorothea.

"For ours," repeated Petrus, giving the words the strongest accent of his
deep voice. Two are stronger than one, and it is long since we ceased to
say 'I' in discussing any question concerning the house or the children;
and both have been touched by to-day's events."

"The senate will not support you in constructing the road?"

"No, the bishop gave the casting-vote. I need not tell you how we stand
towards each other, and I will not blame him; for he is a just man, but
in many things we can never meet half-way. You know that he was in his
youth a soldier, and his very piety is rough--I might almost say warlike.
If we had yielded to his views, and if our head man Obedianus had not
supported me, we should not have had a single picture in the church, and
it would have looked like a barn rather than a house of prayer. We never
have understood each other, and since I opposed his wish of making
Polykarp a priest, and sent the boy to learn of the sculptor Thalassius
--for even as a child he drew better than many masters in these wretched