The gardener knew full well how much depended on his silence; Philippus
tacitly agreed to the old man's arrangement, but for the present he
avoided discussing the matter with the women. When, at length he set off
on his painful errand to the widow, Horapollo dismissed him saying:

"Courage, courage, my Son.--And as you pass by, just glance at our little
garden;--we grieved to see the fine old palm-tree perish; but now a young
and vigorous shoot is growing from the root."

"It has been drooping since yesterday and will die away," replied
Philippus shrugging his shoulders.

But the old man exclaimed: "Water it, Gibbus! the palm-tree must be
watered at once."

"Aye, you have water at hand for that!" retorted the leech, but he added
bitterly as he reached the stairs, "If it were so in all cases!"

"Patience and good purpose will always win," murmured the old man; and
when he was alone he growled on angrily: "Only be rid of that dry old
palm-tree--his past life in all its relations to that patrician hussy
Away with it, into the fire!--But how am I to get her? How can I manage
it?"

He threw himself back in his arm-chair, rubbing his forehead with the
tips of his fingers. He had come to no result when the negro requested
an audience for some visitors. These were the heads of the senate of
Memphis, who had come as a deputation to ask counsel of the old sage.
He, if any one, would find some means of averting or, at any rate,