in the cenoby, and he joined a caravan, and for fifteen days dreamed of the meeting that awaited him at the end of the journey—­and of the delightful instruction in Greek that he was going to impart to Jesus.  The heights of Mount Sinai turned his thoughts backward only for a moment, and he continued his dream of Jesus, continuing without interruption along the shell-strewn shores of the Sea of Arabah, on and on into the peninsula, till he stepped from the lurching camel into the great caravanserai in Alexandria.

Without exactly expecting to find Jesus waiting for him in the street, he had dreamed of meeting him somewhere in the city.  He was sure he would recognise that lean face, lit with brilliant eyes, in any crowd, and the thought of getting news of Jesus in the synagogues in some sort drowsed in his mind.  As Jesus did not happen to be waiting outside the caravanserai, Joseph sought him from synagogue to synagogue, without getting tidings of him but of another, for the camel-drivers at Mount Sinai had not informed him wrongly:  a young Jew had passed through the city on his way to Athens, but as he did not correspond to Joseph’s remembrances of Jesus, Joseph did not deem it to be worth his while to follow this Jew to Athens.  He remained in Alexandria without forming any resolutions, seeking Jesus occasionally in the Jewish quarters; and when they were all searched he returned to the synagogues once more and began a fresh inquisition, but very soon he began to see that the faces about him were overspread with incredulous looks and smiles, especially when he related that his friend was the young prophet discovered by John among the hills of Judea, tending sheep.

What tale is this that he tells us? the Jews asked apart; but finding Joseph well instructed and of agreeable presence and manner, they made much of him.  If Galilee could produce such a man as Joseph, Galilee was going up in the world.  We will receive thee and gladly, but speak no more to us of thy shepherd prophet, and betake thyself to our schools of philosophy, which thou’lt enjoy, for thy Greek is excellent.  But who taught thee Greek?  And while Joseph was telling of Azariah, little smiles played about his eyes and mouth, for the incredulity of the Alexandrian Jews had begotten incredulity in him, and he began to see how much absurdity his adventure made show for.  The Alexandrian Jews liked him better for submitting himself so cheerfully to their learning and their ideas, and he became a conspicuous and interesting person, without knowledge that he was becoming one.  Nor was it till having moulded himself, or been moulded, into a new shape that he began to think that he might have done better if he had left the moulding to God.  His conscience told him this and reminded him how he vowed himself to Jesus, whom Banu saw in a vision.  All the same he remained, not unnaturally, a young man enticed by the charm of the Greek language, and the science of the Alexandrian philosophers, who were