She was standing by the entrance to the cave when, high above her head,
she heard the falling of stones and the cry of a human voice. She
started and listened with out-stretched neck and strung sinews,
motionless. Then she broke suddenly into a loud and piercing shout of
joy, and flinging up her arms she flew up the mountain towards a
traveller who came swiftly down to meet her.

"Hermas! Hermas!" she shouted, and all the sunny delight of her heart
was reflected in her cry so clearly and purely that the sympathetic
chords in the young man's soul echoed the sound, and he hailed her with
joyful welcome.

He had never before greeted her thus, and the tone of his voice revived
her poor crushed heart like a restorative draught offered by a tender
hand to the lips of the dying. Exquisite delight, and a glow of
gratitude such as she had never before felt flooded her soul, and as he
was so good to her she longed to show him that she had something to offer
in return for the gift of friendship which he offered her. So the first
thing she said to him was, "I have staid constantly near your father, and
have brought him water early and late, as much as he needed."

She blushed as she thus for the first time praised herself to him, but
Hermas exclaimed, "That is a good girl! and I will not forget it. You
are a wild, silly thing, but I believe that you are to be relied on by
those to whom you feel kindly."

"Only try me," cried Miriam holding out her hand to him. He took it, and
as they went on together he said:

"Do you hear the brass? I have warned the watchmen up there; the