The love of Athenais and Hermas was like a tiny rivulet that sinks out of sight in a cavern, but emerges again as a bright and brimming stream.  The careless comradery of childhood was mysteriously changed into a complete companionship.

When Athenais entered the House of the Golden Pillars as a bride, all the music of life came with her.  Hermas called the feast of her welcome “the banquet of the full chord.”  Day after day, night after night, week after week, month after month, the bliss of the home unfolded like a rose of a thousand leaves.  When a child came to them, a strong, beautiful boy, worthy to be the heir of such a house, the heart of the rose was filled with overflowing fragrance.  Happiness was heaped upon happiness.  Every wish brought its own accomplishment.  Wealth, honour, beauty, peace, love—­it was an abundance of felicity so great that the soul of Hermas could hardly contain it.

Strangely enough, it began to press upon him, to trouble him with the very excess of joy.  He felt as if there were something yet needed to complete and secure it all.  There was an urgency within him, a longing to find some outlet for his feelings, he knew not how—­ some expression and culmination of his happiness, he knew not what.

Under his joyous demeanour a secret fire of restlessness began to burn—­an expectancy of something yet to come which should put the touch of perfection on his life, He spoke of it to Athenais, as they sat together, one summer evening, in a bower of jasmine, with their boy playing at their feet.  There had been music in the garden; but now the singers and lute-players had withdrawn, leaving the master and mistress alone in the lingering twilight, tremulous with inarticulate melody of unseen birds.  There was a secret voice in the hour seeking vainly for utterance—­a word waiting to be spoken at the centre of the charm.

“How deep is our happiness, my beloved!” said Hermas; “deeper than the sea that slumbers yonder, below the city.  And yet I feel it is not quite full and perfect.  There is a depth of joy that we have not yet known—­a repose of happiness that is still beyond us.  What is it?  I have no superstitious fears, like the king who cast his signet-ring into the sea because he dreaded that some secret vengeance would fall on his unbroken good fortune.  That was an idle terror.  But there is something that oppresses me like an invisible burden.  There is something still undone, unspoken, unfelt—­ something that we need to complete everything.  Have you not felt it, too?  Can you not lead me to it?”

“Yes,” she answered, lifting her eyes to his face; “I, too, have felt it, Hermas, this burden, this need, this unsatisfied longing.  I think I know what it means.  It is gratitude—­the language of the heart, the music of happiness.  There is no perfect joy without gratitude.  But we have never learned it, and the want of it troubles us.  It is like being dumb with a heart full of love.  We must find the word for it, and say it together.  Then we shall be perfectly joined in perfect joy.  Come, my dear lord, let us take the boy with us, and give thanks.”