Jesus’ face darkened, but he said nothing, and Esora asked him if he did not care to travel with Nicodemus, and he answered that if he went to Egypt he would like to go with Joseph.  But my master has business here, and may not leave it easily.  Is this so, Joseph?  Jesus asked, and Joseph answered:  it is true that I have business here, but there are other reasons, and weightier ones than the one Esora has put before thee, why I may not leave Jerusalem and go to live in Egypt.  But wouldst thou have me go to Egypt with Nicodemus, Joseph?  Jesus asked, and Joseph could not do else than say that the companion he would choose would not be one whose tongue was always at babble.  But wilt thou go to Egypt, he asked, if I tell thee that it is for thy safety and for ours that we propose this voyage to thee?  And Jesus answered:  be it so.

Then, Jesus, we’ll make plans together, Esora and myself, for thy departure; and having thanked him, Jesus returned to Matred in the kitchen, and they could hear him talking with her while they debated, and as soon as the kitchen door closed Joseph told Esora that he could not break the promise he gave to his father, and it was this very promise that she strove to persuade him to forgo.  For it is the only way, she said, and he, agreeing with her, said:  though I have promised my father not to keep the company of Jesus, it seems to me that I should be negligent in my duty towards Jesus if I did not go with him to Egypt; and Esora said:  that is well said, Master, and now we will go to our beds.  God often counsels us in sleep and warns us against hasty promises.

And it was as he expected it would be:  he was that night disturbed by a dream in which his father appeared to him wearing a distressful face, saying:  I have a blessing that I would give to thee.  There were more words than this, but Joseph could not remember them; but the words he did remember seemed to him a warning that he must not leave Judea; and Jesus was of one mind with him when he heard them related on the terrace.  A son, he said, must be always obedient to his father, and love him before other men.

Whereupon Esora, who was standing by when these words were spoken, was much moved, for she, too, believed in dreams and their interpretation, and she could put no other interpretation upon Joseph’s dream than that he was forbidden to go to Egypt.  But Joseph might write, she said, to some of his friends in Egypt, and they could send a friend, if they wished it, who would meet Jesus at Jericho; and this plan was in dispute till all interest in Egypt faded from their minds, and they began to talk of other countries and cities; of Athens and Corinth we were talking, Joseph said to Esora, who had come into the room, and of India, of Judea.  But if Jesus were to go to India we should never see him again, she answered.  It is thy good pleasure, Master, to arrange the journey, and when it is arranged to thy satisfaction thou’lt