Three years ago, on the occasion of the marriage of their eldest son, they had been standing together, looking up at the starry sky, when Petrus had come close up to her, and had said, “How calmly and peacefully the wanderers up there follow their roads without jostling or touching one another!  As I walked home alone from the quarries by their friendly light, I thought of many things.  Perhaps there was once a time when the stars rushed wildly about in confusion, crossing each other’s path, while many a star flew in pieces at the impact.  Then the Lord created man, and love came into the world and filled the heavens and the earth, and he commanded the stars to be our light by night; then each began to respect the path of the other, and the stars more rarely came into collision till even the smallest and swiftest kept to its own path and its own period, and the shining host above grew to be as harmonious as it is numberless.  Love and a common purpose worked this marvel, for he who loves another, will do him no injury, and he who is bound to perfect a work with the help of another, will not hinder nor delay him.  We two have long since found the right road, and if at any time one of us is inclined to cross the path of the other, we are held back by love and by our common duty, namely to shed a pure light on the path of our children.”

Dorothea had never forgotten these words, and they came into her mind now again when Petrus held out his hand to her so warmly; as she laid hers in it, she said: 

“For the sake of dear peace, well and good—­but one thing I cannot leave unsaid.  Soft-hearted weakness is not usually your defect, but you will utterly spoil Polykarp.”

“Leave him, let us leave him as he is,” cried Petrus, kissing his wife’s brow.  “It is strange how we have exchanged parts!  Yesterday you were exhorting me to mildness towards the lad, and to-day—­”

“To-day I am severer than you,” interrupted Dorothea.  “Who, indeed, could guess that an old graybeard would derogate from the duties of his office as father and as judge for the sake of a woman’s smiling face in clay—­as Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage?”

“And to whom would it occur,” asked Petrus, taking up his wife’s tone, “that so tender a mother as you would condemn her favorite son, because he labored to earn peace for his soul by a deed—­by a work for which his master might envy him?”

“I have indeed observed,” interrupted Dorothea, that Sirona’s image has bewitched you, and you speak as if the boy had achieved some great miracle.  I do not know much about modelling and sculpture, and I will not contradict you, but if the fair-haired creature’s face were less pretty, and if Polykarp had not executed any thing remarkable, would it have made the smallest difference in what he has done and felt wrong?  Certainly not.  But that is just like men, they care only for success.”