The old man listened with many a “Hum” and “Ha”—­then he bid her accompany him to his own house, where his wife would find a corner that she might fill.

She gladly agreed, and thanked him eagerly when he also told the doorkeeper to bring Papias after them if he should be found.  Relieved of the worst of her griefs, Agne followed her new friend through the streets and lanes, till they paused at the gate of a small garden and he said:  “Here we are.  What we have we give gladly, but it is little, very little.  Indeed, who can bear to live in luxury when so many are perishing in want and misery?”

As they went across the plot, between the little flower-beds, the deacon pointed to a tree and said with some pride:  “Last year that tree bore me three hundred and seven peaches, and it is still healthy and productive.”

A hospitable light twinkled in the little house at the end of the garden, and as they entered a queer-looking dog came out to meet his master, barking his welcome.  He jumped with considerable agility on his fore-legs, but his hind legs were paralyzed and his body sloped away and stuck up in the air as though it were attached to an invisible board.

“This is my good friend Lazarus,” said the old man cheerfully.  “I found the poor beggar in the road one day, and as he was one of God’s creatures, although he is a cripple, I comfort myself with the verse from the Psalms:  ’The Lord has no joy in the strength of a horse, neither taketh he pleasure in any man’s legs.’”

He was so evidently content and merry that Agne could not help laughing too, and when, in a few minutes, the deacon’s wife gave her a warm and motherly reception she would have been happier than she had been for a long time past, if only her little brother had not been a weight on her mind and if she had not longed so sadly to have him safe by her side.  But even that anxiety presently found relief, for she was so weary and exhausted that, after eating a few mouthfuls, she was thankful to lie down in the clean bed that Elizabeth had prepared for her, and she instantly fell asleep.  She was in the old deacon’s bed, and he made ready to pass the night on the couch in his little sitting-room.

As soon as the old couple were alone Eusebius told his wife how and where he had met the girl and ended by saying: 

“It is a puzzling question as to these Arians and other Christian heretics.  I cannot be hard on them so long as they cling faithfully to the One Lord who is necessary to all.  If we are in the right—­and I firmly believe that we are—­and the Son is of one substance of the Father, he is without spot or blemish; and what can be more divine than to overlook the error of another if it concerns ourselves, or what more meanly human than to take such an error amiss and indulge in a cruel or sanguinary revenge on the erring soul?  Do not misunderstand me.  I, unfortunately—­or rather, I say, thank God!—­I have done nothing great here on earth, and have never risen to be anything more than a deacon.  But if a boy comes up to me and mistakes me for an acolyte or something of that kind, is that a reason why I should flout or punish him?  Not a bit of it.