rather hollow cheeks, who must once have been very attractive and
engaging, might have passed for his daughter; she was, in fact, twenty
years younger than her husband. It was evident that she had suffered
much in the course of her life, but had taken it patiently and all for
the best. Her restless husband had caused her the greatest trouble and
alarms, and yet she exerted herself to the utmost to make his life
pleasant. She had the art of keeping every obstacle and discomfort out
of his way, and guessed with wonderful instinct what would help him,
comfort him, and bring him joy. The physician declared that her stooping
attitude, her bent head, and the enquiring expression of her bright,
black eyes were the result of her constant efforts to discover even a
straw that might bring harm to Rufinus if his callous and restless foot
should tread on it.

Their daughter Pulcheria, was commonly called "Pul" for short, to save
time, excepting when the old man spoke of her by preference as "the poor
child." There was at all times something compassionate in his attitude
towards his daughter; for he rarely looked at her without asking himself
what could become of this beloved child when he, who was so much older,
should have closed his eyes in death and his Joanna perhaps should soon
have followed him; while Pulcheria, seeing her mother take such care of
her father that nothing was left for her to do, regarded herself as the
most superfluous creature on earth and would have been ready at any time
to lay down her life for her parents, for the abbess, for her faith, for
the leech; nay, and though she had known her for no more than two days,
even for Paula. However, she was a very pretty, well-grown girl, with
great open blue eyes and a dreamy expression, and magnificent red-gold
hair which could hardly be matched in all Egypt. Her father had long
known of her desire to enter the convent as a novice and become a nursing
sister; but though he had devoted his whole life to a similar impulse,