moon. The Bishop and all the priests of the province were to head the
procession, and thus a simple natural phenomenon was forced in the minds
of the people into a significance it did not possess.

"And if the little comet which my old foster father discovered last week
continues to increase," added the physician, "so that its tail spreads
over a portion of the sky, the panic will reach its highest pitch; I can
see already that they will behave like mad creatures."

"But a comet really does portend war, drought, plague, and famine," said
Pulcheria, with full conviction; and Paula added:

"So I have always believed."

"But very wrongly," replied the leech. "There are a thousand reasons
to the contrary; and it is a crime to confirm the mob in such a
superstition. It fills them with grief and alarms; and, would you
believe it--such anguish of mind, especially when the Nile is so low
and there is more sickness than usual, gives rise to numberless forms
of disease? We shall have our hands full, Rufinus."

"I am yours to command," replied the old man. "But at the same time, if
the tailed wanderer must do some mischief, I would rather it should break
folks' arms and legs than turn their brains."

"What a wish!" exclaimed Paula. "But you often say things--and I see
things about you too--which seem to me extraordinary. Yesterday you
promised. . . ."

"To explain to you why I gather about me so many of God's creatures who