entered the house when Miriam's slight form passed across behind the pile
of stones, and vanished swiftly and silently into the slaves' quarters.
These were by this time deserted by their inhabitants, who were busy in
the field, the house, or the quarries; they consisted of a few ill-
lighted rooms with bare, unfinished walls.

The shepherdess went into the smallest, where, on a bed of palm-sticks,
lay the slave that she had wounded, and who turned over as with a hasty
hand she promptly laid a fresh, but ill-folded bandage, all askew on the
deep wound in his bend. As soon as this task was fulfilled she left the
room again, placed herself behind the half open door which led into the
court-yard, and, pressing, her brow against the stone door-post, looked
first at the senator's house, and then at Sirona's window, while her
breath came faster and faster.

A new and violent emotion was stirring her young soul; not many minutes
since she had squatted peacefully on the ground by the side of the
wounded man, with her head resting on her hand, and thinking of her goats
on the mountain. Then she had heard a slight sound in the court, which
any one else would not have noticed; but she not only perceived it, but
knew with perfect certainty with whom it originated. She could never
fail to recognize Hermas' foot-step, and it had an irresistible effect
upon her. She raised her head quickly from her hand, and her elbow from
the knee on which it was resting, sprang to her feet, and went out into
the yard. She was hidden by the mill-stones, but she could see Hermas
lost in admiration. She followed the direction of his eyes and saw the
same image which had fascinated his gaze--Sirona's lovely form, flooded
with sunlight. She looked as if formed out of snow, and roses, and gold,
like the angel at the sepulchre in the new picture in the church. Yes,
just like the angel, and the thought flew through her mind how brown and